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DUBLIN EEVIEW.

VOL. XXXI.

PUBLISHED IK

SEPTEMBER AND DECEMBER, 1851.

LONDON:
THOMAS RICHARDSON AND SON,

172, FLEET STREET ; 9, CkfKU STBEET, DUBLIN ; AND DERBT,

UARSH & BEATTIB, EDINBURGH— HUGH HARGEY, GLASGOW.

KEW YORK: Edward Dvmioan and BaotnBB, 161, Ptii.Toii Siuu.

&, PARIS: 9, Roe dv Coq, nkib thi Lodvkb, SiAWtn aiid Xatikb.

1851.

CONTENTS OF No. LXL

ART. PAGE

I. — 1. A Charge delivered bj the Lord Bishop of Chester.
1841,

2. A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy of the Diocese of
Exeter, on the Present State of the Church. By
HENBr, Lord Bishop of Exeter, 1851. 1

II. — Acts of the Synod of Exeter, holden in the Chapter-
HoQse of the Cathedral Church of Exeter, on June
25th, 26th, and 27th, 1851. (By Authority.) Murray,
Albemarle Street. .. 39

III. — Miscellany of the Celtic Society : the Genealogy of
the Corcalaidhe ; Poem on the Battle of Doun, by
Gilla Brighde Mae Conmhide ; Doucra's Tracts ;
several Poems, Pedigrees, Extracts. Edited by
John O'Donovan, Esq., L.L.D., M.R.I. A. Dublin :
Printed for the Celtic Society, 1849. 53

IV. — 1. Public Instruction in France under M. Guizot.
Quarterly Review. December, 1848.

2. Recit complet des Actes du Gouvernement provi-
soiree ; par Emile Carrey. Paris, Durand, 1848.

3. Rapport fait, au nom de la Commission cbargee de
preparer, une Loi sur TEnseignement, par M. Jules
SufON, representant du peuple,

4- Loi sur TEnseignement, suivie des Rdglements
d' Administration publique Decrets, Circulaires et
Instructions Ministerielles relatives h, soz execution.
Paris, Dupont, 1851.

5. La Verite sur la loi d'enseignement, par Mo a.
Paeisis, ev^que de Langres. Paris, Lecoifre, 1851.

'^ CONTEXTS.

ART. PAGE

6. Premier Rapport sur les travaux du Comite de
rEnseignement libre. Paris, Lecoffire, 1851.

7. De TEducation, par Mgr. Dupanloup, EvSque
d 'Orleans. Paris, Lecoffre, 1850.

8. Id^es sur TEducation, par un Professeur de Pbilo-
Sophie. Paris, Lecoffre.

9. L'Education, Journal d*Enseignement elementai re,
pour les Ecoles et les Families. Paris, Rue Garan-
ciere, 10. 1851 89

V. -Cases of Conscience, or Lessons of Morality. For the
use of the Laitj ; extracted from the Moral Theo-
logy of the Romish Church, By Pascal the
Younger. London: Bosworth, 1851 , 122

VI. — The Lady and the Priest. An Historical Romance.
By Mrs. Maberly, Author of " Emily,** "Leontine,**
" Melanthe,** •* Fashion,** &c. 3 vols., 8vo. London :
Colburn, 1851. .. 144

VII. — Essays Critical and Miscellaneous, by an Octogen-
arian. 2 vols. Printed by G. Nash, Cork, 1851. 172

VIII.— The Catholic Florist A Guide to the cultivation of
Flowers for tbe Altar ; with a list of such as are
appropriate to the several Holy Days and Seasons of
the Ecclesiastical Year ; the whole illustrated by
Historical Notices and Fragments of Ecclesiastical
Poetry. With a Preface by the Rev. Frederick
Oakelet, ma., Oxon. Richardson & Son : London,
Dublin, and Derby. 196

IX. — The " Guardian,** for August 20, and September 3,

XOi/l. ... ... ... ... ... MvFx

X. — Letter to His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, on the
subject of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, and the
Charge addressed to the Clergy of Dublin in 1851.
By Lord Monteagle. Dublin, Hodges and Smith. 218

Summary of Foreign Catholic Literature ...
Notices of Books.

CONTENTS OP No. XLII.

ART. PAGE

I. — 1. Memoirs of William Wordsworth, Poet Laureate,
D.C.L., bj Christopher Wordsworth, D.D., Canon
of Westminster, 2 toIs. London : Moxon, 1851.

2. The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, 6 vols.
London: Moxon, 1851 313

IL— The Life of the Rev. Aloysius Gentili, L.L.D., Father
of the Institute of Charity, and Missionary Apos-
tolic in England. Edited by the Very Reverend
Father Paqani. Richardson and Son, London,

lOtJx. ... ... ••• ... ••• ••• ••• OUi/

III. — 1. Jesus the Son of Mary; or, the Doctrine of the
Catholic Church upon the Incarnation of God the
Son, considered in its bearings upon the reverence
shewn by Catholics to his Blessed Mother, by Rev.
John Brande Morris, M.A., 2 vols. Svo. London :
Toovey, 1851.

2. Lettres Catholiques sur I'Evangile. Catholic Let-
ters on the Gospel. By the Abbe Massiot.
Paris: Dentu, 1851. 387

IV. — The History of the Church of Rome, to the end of the
Episcopate of Damasus, A.D. 384. By Edward
John Shepherd, A.M., Rector of Luddesdown. Svo.
London: Longmans, 1851 437

V. — Returns : Ecclesiastical Commission ; and Arch-
bishoprics and Bishoprids, Ordered, by the House
of Commons, to be pnnted, 16 June, 1851. / ... 475

VI. — Cecile ; or, the Pervert By Sir Charles Rockingham,
Author of " Rockingham," " Love and Ambition."
&c., &c. 8vo. London : Colburuy 1851 519

VII. — Address of the Irish Bishops on the Catholic Univer-
sity. Dublin, 1851. 529

VIIL^The Lancet, vol, 1 & 2. London, 1851 589

THE

DUBLIN REVIEW

SEPTEMBER. 1851.

Art. L — 1. A Charge delivered by the Lord Bishop of Chester. 1841.

2. A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy of the Diocese of Exeter, on tJte
Present State of the Church, By Hbnky, Lord Bishop of Exeter, 1851.

WE Suppose that if ever there was a day when its
warmest supporters were bold enough to deny that
the Anfflican Church was " a house divided against
itself/' that day has long since passed away. Each of the
publications, the titles of which stand prefixed to the follow-
ing pages, is a standing proof of this fact. Each of the
two great factions, (to say nothing of lesser subdivisions,)
into which the Establishment is divided, avow it and
lament it in the plainest terms. To use the happy phrase
of Bishop Philpotts, it is no longer a * logomachy ' which
ranges men now as leaderiJ of opposing parties in the English
Communion ; it is nothing less than a very war of princi-
ples, a vital conflict of opinion as to the primary truths of
the Christian faith and revelation, which keeps them asun-
der. These rival principles, struggling as they are for vic-
tory in the heart of a communion whose main end and
object is the reduction of objective truth to mere subjec-
tivity, the softening down of all unpalatable asperities in
Creeds, and the fusing of them in one harmonious whole of
comprehensive negation, happily seem, now at least, far
beyond any chance of reconcilement. When the Bishops of
that communion who, for the most part, have maintained a
calm and dignified silence amid the strife of tongues, and

VOL. XXXI.— No. LXI. I

2 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church:— [Sept.

have lived, like the Epicurean deities of old, a life unraffled
by the concerns of this lower world — ^when its Bishops take
up the arms which have hitherto been wielded by their Pres-
byters alone, and enter the lists as champions of two rival
and antagonist systems, it needs not any great amount of
skill in divination to prophecy the speedy downfal of the
Establishment of which they are at once the strength and
the weakness. For we have, on this head, to guide us,
not merely common sense, but the plain axiom of
Holy Scripture, which warns us, that " a house divided
against itself must fall/^

For ourselves, we suppose that most men, in their boy-
ish days, have been wont to associate the name of *^ Pas-
torals'^ with all that is peaceful and contented in that
happy rustic life which poets have sung from the days of
Theocritus and Virgil. And we suppose that when they
grew older, and found out by experience that all was not
gold which glittered in their Utopian state of bliss, they
reluctantly gave up all idea of a Bishop acting as the wise
and gentle shepherd of an united flock ; and found out
that by a "Pastoral ^^ was meant an Anglican Bishop's con-
troversial letter to his Clergy. But it has b^n left for
them now in these days to attach a far stronger meaning
to the word ; and we think that if any unprejudiced person
will " read, mark, and inwardly digest' the 120 pages of
which the Bishop of Exeter's Pastoral Letter is composed,
he will not be likely to differ from us when we say that it
is by far the most warlike " Pastoral'^ that we ever read.
It is " Arms and the man' from first to last. It is
no weak and puny composition ; it is not subdued and
querulous in its tone, far from it ; it is a bold, open, and
indignant avowal of the author's unswerving hostility
against his Metropolitan, for a deep injury inflicted ; its
words breathe ^^ siege and dejiance" to the *M*autor of
heretical tenets," who is the present Protestant occupier of
the Protestant See of Canterbury ; and we may safelj^ say,
that if any one of our readers fully realizes to himself
the unity of faith for which our Blessed Lord prayed, and is
anxious to know to what extent differences on the very-
highest and most vital points are allowed to be carried in
the Anglican communion, we cannot do better than advise
him to bestow his most careful attention on these two con-
troversial writings, which, with a few remarks by way of
preface, we now beg leave to introduce to his notice.

1851.] Canterbury and Exeter. 3

What then, in the first place, are the circumstances
under which they were each written ? We will state these
circumstances for the benefit of such of our readers as have
not been much behind the scenes of Anglicanism while
they have been " shifting** during the last ten or fifteen
years — years of not less eventful progress to Anglicans
^though in another way,) than they have been to our-
selves. It was about the year 1840, or 1841, that the
agitation in the English Church, which is so generally
termed the Oxford movement, rose to its height. That
movement dated from July 14th, in the year 1833, and after
nearly eight years of persevering and unceasing " pro-
gress,*' it gained that point than which it never after-
wards rose higher. At that time it is true that one or
two of its disciples had quitted " the Church of their
baptism** for a more solid and substantial faith; but these
were not the leaders of the school ; they were weak and
unstable brethren, of course, and were entitled to little
weight. ' The 90th Tract had not yet been published ;
the Surplice question had not been mooted; the Times,
as vet eager in their favour, had not blown the trumpet
of Protestant alarm, or excited the feelings of our Pro-
testant nation against the weekly Offertory ; and he who
was the master-spirit of the movement, though visited, as
it would seem, with secret misgivings as to the reahty and
tenableness of his " Church*s ** position, had not as yet
exchanged Anglo- Catholicism for Catholicism proper;
Baptismal Regeneration had been satisfactorily drawn out,
explained, and enforced, and the English people had
even begun actually to receive it in part ; for their eyes
as yet were sealed to the necessity of the Sacrament of
Penance as its balance and counterpoise in the analogy
of the faith; and what is still more to the point, Mr.
Gorham and Mr. Goode as yet were not. The antago-
nism of ''Oxford principles'* to the theoretic union of
Church and State, and to that Ecclesiastical supremacy,
before which the Reformers bowed down in abject reverence,
and with which the EngHsh Reformation invested the
reigning Sovereign, had not as yet been drawn out on the
stage of Church Unions, and Meetings at Freemason's
Hall; and Dr. Hampden was so far from being Bishop of
Hereford, that he was only engaged as Regius Professor,
enforcing Sabellian doctrmes upon the young men of
Oxford who were soon about to receive Anglican orders

4 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church:-^ [Sept.

from others as unorthodox as himself. We hiay fairlv
say, then, that in 1840, and 1841, " Church principles
were in the ascendant, and appeared to be rapidly gain-
ing ground, both in public and in private, among mem-
bers of the Establishment. And we may say with
equal truth, that up to that period the same embryo
principles, in a qualified] sense at least, had met with
some amount of approbation — ("cautious/* of course,
and " judicious,* 0 — from such of the Episcopal Bench as
entertained any approximation to fixed principles at all.
However dangerous such opinions as those gf the Oxford
school might be when pushed to their legitimate lengths,
still they could not (how could they ?) be wholly unpalata-
ble, when stated in the abstract, to those Bishops who
ever dared to reflect on what grounds the memoers of
their own Establishment must be led to respect their per-
sons. A set of doctrines whose first and foremost point
was reverence for the office of the English Bishops, at
such, as the true successors of the Apostles, arid repre-
sentatives of Christ, was naturally, we say, most accept-
able for a time to many of the Episcopal body. How
could it be otherwise, and with such principles as these,
at least so long as they remained in their original
and abstract state, and assumed no definite practical shape
and substantial form, to the annoyance of those very
prelates whose groundless claims they had been put for-
ward to defend ?

But among those eight-and-twenty prelates of the English
bench, there was one at least, (if not more,) who, from a
very early time, had watched their rising growth with a
jealous eye. In the lofty tones which were used by the
Oxford school in claiming a divine authority on the part
of the English Clergy, and especially of the English
Bishops, one of that body. Dr. Sumner, Bishop of Ches-
ter, since translated for his services to Canterbury, con-
trived, by a clever hit, to discern a sign of the cloven foot
of Rome. A leading "Evangelicar* in opinion, he knew
that if the principle of the Divme authority was to be main-
tained at all, the cause of the English Reformation must
be abandoned by thinking persons ; he felt that if members
of the English Church were once led to fix their minds on
a visible Church, the Apostolical Succession of their Clergy,
and all that cluster of connected doctrines which together
make up what is called the ** Sacramental System,' they

185 l.j Canterbury and Exeter. 5

would soon see themselves, upon their own principles,
driven on to acknowledge that their Bishops and Priests
could prov« no lawful mission, and to confess that the Andi-
can Reformers, after all, worked sad havoc with the popular
belief in a visible Church, and Sacraments of Grace. And
60, convinced, as he tells us, 1 Appendix No iii., p. 83,) that
"if God's purpose had been to set up a visible Church^** as
the medium of man's communication with Himself, He
surely would have revealed this to us in clear and intel-
ligible terms, whereas Scripture contains nothing of the
kind,*' the Lord Bishop of Chester sat down, composed,
and delivered to his Clergy a Charge, against which it
would appear that his Lordship of Lxeter thought it his
duty to protest at the time ; and now, after the lapse of
ten years, having become his suffragan, speaks thus : "I
declare solemnly, and with a deep sense of the responsi-
bility which attaches to such a declaration, concerning a

* It would seem that His Grace of Canterbury is wholly ignorant
of what St. Paul meant by ** the Church.'* We never met with a
writer, even in the English Communion, who more completely ignored
it as a visible Body. In the appendix to his charge, he enters at con-
siderable length into the question, and — (not much to the satisfaction
of High Church- Anglicans, we fear,)— contrasts together the Catholic
and the Protestant mode of salvation. He declares that Holy
Scripture, ** uniformly addresses us as individuals/' and not as mem-
bers of Christ's body the Church. In his eyes, the Church is
nothing but an aggregate of such individuals as accept the terms of
** an offended sovereign,** namely, God. He again and again declares
that **allthe promises of God's Word are annexed to individual faith."
(See pp. 31, 32, 33, for further proof.) He denies that the Church
has any corporate existence, ana therefore any life or consciousness,
strictly speaking ; and declares that those \rho maintain the con-
trary doctrine, teaching men that by incorporation into the Church
of Christ, they are incorporated into Christ, and made one with
Him, do nothing else but •* interpose the Church instead of Ciirist
as the mediator between God and man." We do not deny, that iu
spite of the Creeds, which the Anglican Church so inconsistently
retains, in outward form at least. His Grace's sentiments are wholly
in keeping with the general tenor of the English Articles, and
especially with the twenty- first, which defines the Church to be " a
congregation of faithful men, where the pure word of God is preached
and the sacraments duly administered." But we are constrained to
ask, whether these principles, when we come to analyse them, are
not essentially one with those of the Independent ana the Quaker ?

6 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church: — [Sept.

document proceeding from such a quarter, that I could not
name any one work of any minister in our Church,
which, though of double the bulk, contains half so
many heretical statements as are contained in this one
charge/' (Bishop of Exeter's Pastoral, p, 39.) But it is
time for us to go into an examination of the Charge itself.
Having entered into some dry details of Church build-
ing and school building connected with his own diocese,
he congratulates his Clergy on a general ** growing attach-
ment to the (EstabUshed) Church, an acknowledgment of
its excellence, and a practical sense of the value of its
sei-vices/' And in the increase of worshippers, or hearers,
or of candidates for confirmation at his hands, his Lord-
ship proceeds most complacently to find ** proofs that

opposition or indiflFerence towards the EstabUshment, or
even separation from it, has not generally arisen from any
distrust of its discipline, or doctrines," (why should it?) "but
from the difficulty, or practical impossibility of obtaining
instruction within its pale/' Next, upon certain subjects
which, in our opinion, even heretics and schismatics gene-
rally deem important, he speaks in terms in which, as we
shall hereafter see, the Bishop of Exeter has commented
most forcibly, but which we shall at once dismiss with the
single remark, that however heretical they may be in the
abstract, they seem to us, after all, quite consistent with
the principles of the English, or indeed of any national
establishment — we mean, as showing a perfect indifference
to all real external truth, as such.

•* Perhaps it Is too much to expect," says his Lordship, " what
nevertheless we earnestly desire, tliat there should be no schisms
or divisions among Christians ; that the Church of Christ should
ever be a seamless coat ; that all the congregations of faithful men
should ever be so strictly one, as to think alike, and agree unani-
mously on all subjects : upon such subjects, for instance, as
Diocesan £piscopaci/, or Infant Baptism, or Liturgical Forrns, or
Church Membership, or a National Establishment. There may be
always some minds, which, on questions such as these, may differ
from the conclusions which'* — (mark here the very essence of unbelief, )

** we believe to be justly deduced from Scripture The comfort

and peace of the Christian world would be greatly increased, if it
were commonly understood that the unity which the Scriptures
demand, were the unity of those who hold alike the great doctrines
of Christian truth, but consent to differ on matters concerning which
Scripture does not carry determinate conviction to every honest
mind." — pp. 16, 17. (The Italics are ours.)

1 85 1 . ] Canterbury and Exeter. 7

' Now we may be allowed to remark, that if ever we read
a passage containing more wide and comprehensive senti-
ments than another upon the most sacred subjects, it is
this which we have just extracted from the Bishop of
Chester's charge, in 1841. Nothing more purely liberal in
its worse sense, ever flowed from the lips or the pen of
even the Dean of Bristol. And yet, to use his Lordship's
own phrase, the above passage is written entirely ** in the
spirit of those articles which our Church maintains," that
is, in the spirit of the purest rationalism. ^ And as, in mat-
ters of which a spiritualized Faith alone is cognizant, the
human reason is but a sorry guide, we shall be much sur-

frised if a further enquiry would not satisfy us that his
iordship is wholly at variance with the Holy Bible which
he professes exclusively to venerate, though, here at least,
he may be quite iw harmony with the spn-it, if not always
with the letter, of the Anglican Prayer Book ; and that
as a consistent follower of what is essentially a mass of
contradictions, he is consequently led to betray a certain
amount of inconsistency with himself, and with the posi-
tions which he, at times, elsewhere assumes.

Of course, there is not a Catholic of the most ordinary
talents and education, who does not know and believe that
Holy Scripture sets forth to all men one, and one only,
way of salvation, the faith of Christ; in other words, that of
the *' One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church,*' which
bears His name. Every instinct of the Catholic's soul and
reason, as well as every instruction that he has received
from the days of childhood, conspire to press upon his mind
the simple fact that, if he will be saved, he must firmly
believe all those sacred truths which the Catholic Church,
as the one accredited teacher sent by God, believes and
teaches, because God has revealed them to Her and to us
through Her. This, we say, is the plain doctrine of Holy
Scripture ; and therefore without fear of contradiction, we
challenge the Anglican Archbishop to prove to us fronr
Holy Scripture, that God requires no higher unitv than a
mere rationalizing acceptance of certain ** great doctrines
of Christian truth," teaching us to " consent to difter"
on lesser matters. Who is it that shall arbitrarily define,
we ask, what matters are great, and what are small and
trivial, in the one Catholic faith ? Every portion, ever3''
particle of that faith is God's eternal truth, and nothing
which refers to God and to the salvation of souls, can be

8 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church:-^ [Septr

small or unimportant. We, at least, who are brought up
under the shelter of that Holy Church, which Dr. Sumner
forsooth ** pities,^* (p. 44) and of which he declares that it
had neither God for its author, nor the welfare of man-
kind for its end,** (p. 27)— we, who by God's gi-ace enjoy
the blessings of a living y infallible sneaking voice to guide
and direct^ our steps, we Cfatholics know that when once
men lose sight of this great fact of one body gifted with
divine authority on earth, to decide in God's name on all
questions connected with the Catholic faith, nothing can
ensue but doubts and dissensions and endless schisms,
ever multiplying themselves as the human mind passes
through new phases of existence and thought. Hence, we
firmly believe (for the matter admits of no dispute) that, by
the very law of its being, the English Church, having
broken oft* from that one living authority which is the cen-
tre and the heart of Christendom, has sunk down to be,
in Dr. Sumner's words, simply the '^National Church,'*
the "Establishment,'' "the Church of the Nation," not
the Church of the living Ood ; and that therefore, as hi»
Grace remarks, it isy perhaps, " too much to expect that
there should be no schisms or divisions among Christians"
who live in its communion, or that its members, left as
they are upon an angiy sea without rudder or compass,
should think alike on such trivial matters forsooth as
*'the Sacrament of Baptism," "Church membership,'*
or "diocesan Episcopacy." It would be equally strange,
if on these and other like matters, any "schisms or divi-
sions " should exist among ourselves, who being united
under the one Head, on whom our blessed Lord promised
to found His Church, and to whom He gave the charge of
all His sheep, are likewise united in one unaltered and
unalterable faith.

But though his writings will not bear the test of Holy
Scripture, still is not his Grace in keeping with the spirit
of his Prayer Book, in speaking on tnese subjects as he
has done above ? We answer yes ; as far as any man can
he in keeping with it. His "views," (for such at best we
suppose ne would call them) like all conceivable views, are
in harmony with some portion or other of the Protestant
Prayer Book. Composed as it is of a variety of discordant
materials, and compacted together by no one single exter-
nal bond of union, except its antipathy to the Church of
Rome : some statements at least of the Anglican Prayer

1B51.] Canlerhury and Exeier. 9

Book may of course be adduced in support of almost anv
heretical view, which any individual may put forward. It
is so conveniently "comprehensive/* that it has room for
all ; it shelters all beneath its expanded win^s, except,

Serhaps, those who hold to the supremacy of the see of
Lome as of divine origin. Every writer, from Dr. Pusey
and Mr. Keble, down to Messrs. Stowell and McNeill,
make their home somewhere or other within its broad pale.
And so while everyone finds himself in harmony with some
p?irt of it, no one is, and no one ever was or will be, iu
keeping with the whole of it, unless on every new page
he chooses to propound some novel view, as unlike that
which has gone before as the scenes in a play. For
example, what Anglican can quarrel with the Arch-
bishop for saying, that " it is too much to expect that there
should be no schisms and divisions on the Church ** (of
England,) when he remembers how the Establishment, so to
speak, has stereotyped schism and dissensions within itself,
in its Prayer for Unity?'**'" And who shall throw the first
stone at his Grace for pronouncing that Infant Baptism,
Diocesan Episcopacy, and Liturgical Forms are ** open
questions,** — matters on which men may ^'consent to differ,^*

— when the Articles themselves declare, not only that
** general councils may err,** but that the Church has no
authority to impose doctrines further than it can prove
that they are taken from Holy Scripture ; thus practically
leaving to the conscience of each one^ of its members the
ultimate appeal as to the real meaning of God*s written
word, and the inferences which he is warranted in drawing
therefrom for the guidance of his life and conduct?

And still further, we feel constrained to ask how far his
Grace is consistent with himself? He admits that there
are matters concerning which Scripture does not carry deter-
minate conviction ** to every honest mind.** Now, in the
name of honesty, how does he reconcile this assertion with

* " 0 God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Saviour,
the Priuce of Peace, give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great
clangers toe are in hy our unhappy divisions. Take away from us all
hatred and injustice^ and whatever else may hinder us from godly union
and concord,'' <£rc., <{rc. — Prayer for Unity, in the * Form of Prayer to
be used in all (Anglican) Churches and Chapels, on the 20th of
June,' every year. Can anything be conceived more plainly con-
demning ? *' Babes conflentem tieum.*'

10 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church: — [Sept.

his fundamental principle of the all-sufficiency of Holy
Scripture ? If there are matters connected with Christian
truth, be they great or be they small, which are left in
Scripture undefined, how can he say, (as he does say by
implication,) that to encounter the infidel and the world-
ling, a man has need only to go forth with the Bible in bis
hand? in other words, that *' the Bible, the whole Bible,
and nothing but the Bible, *^ is intended by God to be
to Christians (and perhaps to Heathens also,) their sole rule
of faith and practice? And again, what can the Arch-
bishop mean by saying, (p. 38) that " Catholics in their creed
hold the vital truths of the Gospel,** while, at the same
time, he denounces the Catholic Church, their holy Mother,
as *'a 8ystem\^ which "overspread the world under the
name of Christianity, which had neither God for its
author, nor the welfare of mankind for its end : who
were debased by what was sent to purify them, and deceived
by what was ordained to deliver them from error?'* We
are compelled to ask his Grace, if God was not the author
of this great system which we call the Catholic Church,
who was ? By the confession of ourselves and our adver-
saries, it is not the work of man : and what remains but
that in the opinion of his Grace of Canterbury, (we trem-
ble as we write the.words,) it is the actual work of Satan V'^

* Dr. Sumner, it would seem, is very fond of attributing to
Satanic agency, all those religious principles which are opposed to
his own. Thus it is well known that he quoted ana authoritcUir)ely
condemned as Satanic, not only certain extracts from Mr. W. B.
Gladstone's work on ** Church Principles," but also the very words
of Bishop Pearson, by far the greatest theologian that the Anglican
Establishment has ever produced, and one of his Lordship*% own pre^
decessors in the see of Chester, We ought not, therefore, to complain
at his Grace's insinuations. It is a very ea^j way of setting down
an opponent. But uncharitable as it is, it falls short of the follow-
ing terms in which the Lord Bishop of London, preaching within
the old Catholic walls of Westminster Abbey, and before the
Society for the Propagation of the (Anglican) Gospel, thought fit to
denounce the Catholio religion, but a few months since. '* The
Church of Rome had departed from the example of our Lord, and by
an unworthy condescension to the weakness of human nature on
the one hand, and the rites of Paganism on the other, she had
diluted and debased the truth of the Gospel, and she had made a
compromise with the powers of darkness for achieving a seeming but
unsubstautial triumph." (See Morning Post, June I7» I85I.)

1^ 1 . J Canterbury and Exeter, 1 1

And if it be such, let him further tell us how this system
of diabolical imposture comes, as he elsewhere confesses, still
to " hold the vital truths of the Gospel ?'^ We pause for an
answer. And finally, we may ask him, on what principle
he excludes from the Anglican fold those views which the
followers of Dr. Pusey hold upon Sacraments and Church
membership, &c., while he vindicates the articles and
Prayer Book, on the ground of being wide, and liberal, and
comprehensive ? If he is right in his estimate of their
" breadth,*^ why should he seek to exclude High-Church-
men from a place within their pale ? They believe that
their own principles are sanctioned by Holy Scripture ; on
what principle then are they denied toleration by men
who profess to draw all their opinions from the self-same
source ? Surely there is room for both in so tolerant and
comprehensive an establishment.

Such is, after all, the suni and substance of this Charge,
which ten years ago was inflicted on the Clergy of the
diocese of Chester. At once Latitudinarian and Evan-
gelical, we cannot wonder that, little as are the merits
which it claims as a piece of composition, and though
still more worthless as a piece of theological writing, it
had an effect at the time when it was delivered, as
tending, in some measure, to raise the hopes of that sec-
tion of the Anglican Clergy who, upon the whole, most
nearly represent the tenets of the Anglican Reformers —
those pure and holy men who, in the plenitude of their
zeal for innovation, first put forth the "statement" of
justification bv faith only, and ** pierced the veil to divest
the Church of the mystery in which it had been shrouded,
and disclosed it to the world, in its true and scriptural
form, as the company of believers." (p. 33.) After read-
ing this and other similar sentiments which occupy two-
thirds of Dr. Sumner's pages, who can wonder that a per-
son so far in advance of the miserable system in which he
has been reared as Dr. Philpotts is, ** nme years ago, on
the very first occasion after that Charge was published,''
should have " addressed" his Clergy "respectmg some of

Verily, His Eminence Cardinal Wiseman was fully justified, when
from the pulpit of St. George's Cathedral he characterised suoh
language as •* atrocious and hateful to the God of charity and
peace." (See Sermon on ** Compromises of Truth in Religious
Teaching." Richardson.)

l2 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church: — [Sept.

its errors?*' And now that Dr. Sumner sits in the once
CathoUc See of Canterbury, and complacently refers his
Clergy back to that same charge as a prophetic warning-
no w that High- Church principles, when fully carried out,
have been observed to ** tend naturally to those Romish
errors which were renounced by the Anglican Church** — •
now when his Grace's words have acquired, from his high
position, that weight which they have not in them-
selves, our wonder is but little increased at finding that
the Bishop of Exeter again returns with increased vigour
and energy to attack and demolish the obnoxious docu-
ment. For if the Archbishop's position be the true
one for an Anglican Primate, — (and we have little doubt
of it ourselves,) — then plainly one of two results must
follow ; either the English Church will stand forth in the
eyes of the^ world branded by its own highest dignitary
with tolerating two sets of irreconcileable principles, one
of which must be a heresy ; or, on the other hand, the
Bishop of Exeter, and those who think with him, by the
force of their own principles must be driven forth from
the pale of so comprehensive and elastic a body ; for their
own position forces them necessarily to the conclusion
that the body which, professing to be a Church, willingly
tolerates a heresy, does thereby forfeit its claim to be a

Eart of the Church of the living God. And if they once
eartily embrace this conclusion, we know but of one
haven into which it can carry them, the bosom of the
Church of God. On this one point we have but little rea-
son to diflFer from the Primate of all England, who augurs
that all persons imbued with so-called Anglo-Catholic
views, and taught to lay stress upon such doctrines as
those of a Visible Church, Apostolical Succession, and
Sacramental Grace, as opposed to unrestrained approach
to God by an act of individual faith, must eventually
be led to abandon the Anglican communion, as a body
which either denies these truths, or else does not hold
them except as a matter of opinion, and speaks upon them,
as Father Newman once said, " with the stammering
lips of ambiguous formularies."

Now, firmly believing, as we do, that these vital por-
tions of the Catholic faith appear, at first sight, in some
degree sanctioned by certain isolated parts of the Ang-
lican Prayer Book, still we dare not pronounce that any
one who holds these portions, (provided, of course, he

1 85 1 .] Canterbury and Exeter* 1 3

reject the supremacy of the Roman See,) any more than
the person who denies them, is thereby at once excluded
from that most tolerant and comprehensive of all heretical
bodies, the English Church. He has a right to shelter
himself wherever he. can find a sentence of her formal
documents to throw its protection over him. But then, on
the other hand, he has no right whatever to hold these
same truths, except as matters of private opinion deduced
by his own method of inference from Holy Scripture.
And so, if he professes to hold them or to teach them on
the authority of the English Church, he must be reminded
that in other parts of its formularies that same ** Church'*
teaches him the direct contrary of these truths; and
what then becomes of his vision of an authoritative
guide and leader? Like "fairy frost-work,'" it has
melted away before his eyes; it has ceased to exist. But
after all, this is no concern of ours ; and so, dismissing for
the present all consideration as to who are, and who
are not, honest in their subscription to the formularies
of the Protestant Establishment, let us proceed to exa-
mine at some further length the celebrated "Pastoral Let-
ter" which their Bishop has addressed, " upon the present
state of the Church,'' to the Clergy of the diocese of
Exeter.

To sum up our opinion of this letter as a whole in a few
words would be impossible ; in one part it is so warlike
and belligerent, in another so firm and dogmatic in its
statements of positive truth ; here it savours so strongly
of the astute and crafty advocate, and there again it bursts
forth into such fierce invective against the authors and
abettors of the (so-called) wrong which (as High Church-
men declare,) was inflicted last year on the Engjish
Church by the judicial committee of Her Majesty's Privy
Council. Two things there are which seem more espe-
cially to gall and wound the Bishop, as from page to page
he recurs to his " Crambe repetita" of complaint — the
Gorham decision, and the religious opinions of his own
Metropolitan. We will only fDrewarn our readers of a
fact which we think High- Anglicans will read with some
astonishment, that if they acknowledge in his Lordship of
Exeter a far nearer approximation to the one great system
of Catholic doctrine which underlies, if we may so speak,
the whole of the writings of the New Testament, and espe-
cially the inspired Epistles which the Holy Ghost dictated

14 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church: — [Sept.

by the mouth of God's own Apostles, still they will find his
Grace of Canterbury more in keeping with the comprehen-
sive and latitudinarian views of that gigantic compromise,
the English Prayer Book. Would that Dr. Philpott
could be led to see to how much of t^e Catholi? faith the
inferences of his own private judgment (for, after all, they
are nothing more at present,) have compelled him to bear
witness ; and would that God's Holy Spirit, even at this
late day, now that he has passed the threescore years
and ten of man's allotted span, might lead him to
submit his will, ere it be too late, to the living, speaking,
and teaching authority which God has set up in His one
holy Catholic Church ; and so enable him to exchange the
uncertainties of private opinion and human doctrines
for a solid and substantial faith.

The first subject on which his Lordship touches is one
which, as he says, " stands forth in glaring and disastrous

Prominence among the events of the last three years."
'his is, of course, the Gorham decision ; in his own
words, *' the blow which has been dealt (unknowingly,
doubtless, and unintentionally,) by the judicial committee of
Her Majesty's Privy Council, against the Catholicity, and
therefore the essential character of our Church, as a sound
branch of the Church of Christ, by deciding that it does not
hold, as of faith, one of the articles of the creed of Christ-
endom." (p 2.) Against this decision, as is well known,
his Lordship formally protested, on two grounds: 1. That
Mr. Gorham's doctrines were not fairly stated in the
report which the judicial committee presented to Her
Majesty ; and 2. That the Canons of the Church had
been disregarded in the judgment pronounced upon the
casp. And this latter point he now endeavours very skil-
fully, but we think not very conclusively, to establish.
For the subject is one which demands to be viewed as a
whole. It will not do to take isolated quotations even
from the very soundest lawyers, unless at the same time
we take into consideration, not merely the abstract theory
of what the Church ought to be, but i\\Q actual historical
facts in their collective bearings. Now it is most certain
that a community which wilfully resigns into other
hands than its own the guardianship of those sacred truths
which it believes itself alone commissioned to maintain
and teach, has little or no right to complain if its unfaith-
fulness to so high a trust be turned against itself, aud it

1851.] Canlerhurg and Exeter. 15

fall wounded or slain by an arrow feathered from its own
wing. If, as we are compelled by the facts of history to
believe, the English Church, by the " Act of Submission,'*
sold away her own birthright to the Eighth Henry for a
mess of p^tage; if — forgetful of God, and of His most holy
faith, which she was founded and endowed to maintain in
this land, whether princes and kings and other earthly
powers were willing or unwiUing — she cut herself off from
the rest of Christendom, and consented to have her sj-nods
convened only by the king's authority, and her Canons
enacted in his name, and not in her own — if she thus
** flung God's commission beneath the footstool of an earthly
Sovereign," we do think that she has little or no ground
of complaint, if she finds out, when it is too late, that the
powers of this world regard her and use her freely as a
tool in their own hands ; and that henceforth she must
speak with faltering accents, according to the ever- vary-
ing fashion of the age, and as a national institution, accom-
modate her creed to the sovereign people whose property,
slave, and creature she has become. And hence it is of
no use for the Bishop to plead on his side the " Statute
of Appeals," which after all goes no further than to deny
to " any exterior person or persons," — (i. e., to the
See of Rome,) — that " power to render and yield justice,
and final determination in all cases," which it assigns in
the same breath to "the one supreme head and king" of
the English constitution. Hence, too, it is superfluous, or
rather suicidal, to appeal, as his Lordship does, to Bracton ;
for, after all, he asserts no more than that the spiritual
and civil sword oup:ht to aid each other, a point which
nobody denies ; or to Coke, who, we really think, unless
he was uttering the very grossest Erastianism, must have
been intending a covert satire on the Post-Reformation
Church of England, when he said, "certain it is that this
kingdom hath best been governed, and peace and quiet
preserved, when both parties, i. e., when the practice of the
temporal courts, and the ecclesiastical judges, have kept
themselves within their proper jurisdiction, without
encroaching or usurping upon one another." Surely that
great lawyer, when he wrote these words, must have been
referring in memory to days when as yet the Reformers
had not sacrilegiously given over the supremacy in things
spiritual into the hands of an earthly monarch. For, let
us ask, at what time, since those unhappy days, have the

IG Antagonist Systems in t/ie Anglican Church: — [Sept*

temporal and spiritual elements ever worked, each in their
separate sphere of action without encroaching on each
other's province, unless both the one and the other be
considered as merely subordinate departments of the
constitution ? And if this be the case, we suapose that
upon the whole they have gone on with tolerable unani-
mity in their servility to the Crown. Still more unsuc-
cessful is the Bishop ni his allusion to the lay commission
appointed under Henry, and again under Edward. For
even granting, which we do not by any means grant,
that they contemplated a Council of Provincial Bishops
as " the only proper tribunal of ultimate appeal in all cased
strictly spiritual,*' yet l^t High- Anglicans tell us plainly
whether Anglican Bishops could constitute such a tribunal
under Post-Reformation enactments, save and except by
the authority of the king, and without looking to him to con-
firm their decisions ? And what is all this but, to use the
Bishop's own emphatic words, — ** to fling the commission
of Christ under the footstool of an earthly throne?'*
Surely if the instituting of Mr. Gorham to his living
without further enquiry at the bidding of Her Majesty, be,
as the Bishop says, such " a surrender'' on the Arch-
bishop's part, as **can be regarded only as the voluntary
betrayal of a high and most sacred trust," the question
naturally occurs to unprejudiced minds, cannot Dr. Sum-
ner fairly plead that he is only acting " ministerially" as
the agent of a system which is based and founded on a
like surrender; and that if he, by his single act, has
renounced any Divine authority inherent in his office and
mission, the English Church itself has been doing the
same for the whole three hundred years of her existence?
*' The servant, especially if he is well paid for his work,"
His Grace may fairly argue, *' must not be too scrupulous
as to the character of his master's trade ; and if he is only
faithful in executing the commands of that master, be they
honest or dishonest, he is simply doing his duty, and his
master must look to the rest for himself." Let us suppose
that a rich mill-owner has recently entered into a
fraudulent speculation. Let us suppose that the thousand
hands which he employs are well aware that the system
on which their master trades is one which cannot be
defended on abstract principles of justice, yet shall we
blame the artizan who, without entering into the question
of honesty or dishonesty, does his week's work, and receives

1851.] Canterbury and Exeter. 17

for it his week's pay? Just so the Archhishop may
fairly plead, we think, that he is, after all, the honest ser-
vant of a flagrantly dishonest system, and must act
accordmgly. And this is just what he does in effect. We
all remember the answer which he gave in the Hampden
case to those Clergymen who requested him to decline to
consecrate the Professor as Bishop. *' Reverend Sirs, It is
not within the bounds of any authority possessed by me to
give you an opportunity of proving your objections ; finding,
therefore, nothing on which I could act in compliance with
your remonstrance, I proceeded in the execution of my
ojice, (the italics are ours,) to obey Her Majesty's man-
date for Dr. Hampden's consecration in the usual forai."
And just in the same spirit, and fairly enough we think,
the Archbishop answers some of the remonstrant Clergy
of the diocese of Exeter, by saying that in the institution
of Mr. Gorham to his living he acted not judicially, but
ministerially. ^ However heretical in the abstract Mr.
Gorham's opinions may be, we say that the Archbishop
could not have acted otherwise without violating the con-
tract of servility to the Crown and people of England, on
which he entered, when first he took possession of the See
of Canterbury and the palace of Lambeth. The question,
of course, arises, whose minister Dr. Sumner was when
he did this thing? And we shall not disagree either with
his Grace or his Lordship when we say that he was obvi-
ously acting as the minister of the Queen and people of
England. Whose else could he be ?

We cannot leave the topic of this decision, without one or
two further remarks, though they are not strictly relevant
to our immediate subject.

High Churchmen of the English communion, are apt to
defend themselves from the obvious consequences of the
Gorham decision, by pleading that whatever may be the
decision of the State, the Church Court, at the head of which
sits Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, pronounced its judgment
in favour of the Bishop of Exeter. And on this argument
they rely, in order to prove that the Church of England
is not committed to heresy. Now clearly, if Sir JU. J*.
Fust's decision was the decision of the English Church
in 1850, ii was equally so in 1845. And if Anglicans will
cjist their minds back five years, they will remember that
the same Sir H. J. Fust^ in the same court, and acting in

VOL. XXXI.— No. LXI. 2

18 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church: — [Sept.

the same capacity, officially declared in 1845, that the
Church of England knew nothing of stone altars, or altars
of an^; kind, and by consequence swept away " Priest'^ and
''sacrifice,'' as well as " altar,"— (for they all must stand or
fall together) — from his Church's vocabulary. Anglicans,
then, must either accept both decisions, or reject both.
Which will they do ? If they accept both, they have no
altar, sacrifice, or priesthood; one of then* "two only" Sacra-
ments is taken from them. And if they reject both deci-
sions. Baptism is robbed of all its efficacy as a Sacrament.
Let them take whichever horn of the dilemma they please.
And we must hazard another observation still — if Dr.
Philpotts really believed that the Archbishop, in the case
of Mr. Gorham, acted only in a ministerial capacity,
in other words, as minister of the advisers of the
Crown, how is it that he did not license a clergyman
of his own nomination to the care of souls in the parish
of Bampford Speke, and bid the parishioners, on peril
of their souls, to communicate with him only ? If, at least,
he really believed his own doctrinal position to be essen-
tially and solely true, and that each Bishop with his
Clergy and people are a Church complete in themselves,
independent of any accidental tie to a national community,
how could he have omitted to take this line, the only one
which could have brought matters to a crisis, and tested
the inherent power of his own principles ? Again, we can-
not help pressing upon the attention of Anglicans, that the
Bishop of Exeter (whatever might have been the cost, had
he then adopted a diflFerent line,) cannot now plead that
the English Church is not committed to the decision of
the judicial committee ; for he himself acknowledged the
legitimate authority of that court hy consenting to plead
his case before it ; the two Archbishops and the chief
Bishop of the land sat in it as assessors, nay, the two
former were *' consentient, and even eager parties to the
decision." (p. 9.) Deeply as Dr. Philpotts may lament it
now, his grief has come too late. It cannot alter the past.
What has been, is, and cannot be as though it never had
been. Let us hear what the Bishop says concerning his
own line of conduct ; we cannot listen to his words without
commiserating their author.

" I did not resist (as I was advised that I might successfully
resist,) the appointmeut of such assessors to such judges. The

1851.] Canterbury and Exeter. 19

consequence has been most disastrous. Would that it affected me only !
I should then be free from that self-reproach which I cannot altogether
succeed in attempting to silence^ that I rashly sacrificed the highest and
most sacred interests of CatJiolic faiih, to feelings too much akin to
courtesy and delicacy to individuals." — p. 10. (The Italics are
ours.)

The Bishop, we observe, expresses no regret for having
pleaded before such a court as that of the judicial com-
mittee, but only for not having resisted the appointment of
two *^ such '* Archbishops as assessors. It is clear too,
that in spite of himself. Dr. Philpotts feels that some how
or other he has compromised the Catholic faith, and that
he is now doing all that lies in his power to stifle the
reproaches of his conscience.

The following pages of his Pastoral show us by what means
he at present contrives to do so. He palliates the matter
to himself and to his friends, by ** saying that that decision
did not go the length which has been commonly supposed
of pronouncing the clerk whom he had rejected, as fit and
worthy to be instituted to the cure of souls. '' It only declar-
ed that "sufficient ground had not been laid by the Bishop
for rejecting him; and that in consequence his own jurisdic-
tion pro hdc vice was null, and had passed to the Arch-
bishop as superior ordinary." ^ Now this may be, for
all we know, a very nice distinction on paper ; but
really viewing it practically, we do think that it amounts
to wliat in another case, and where his own opinions
and interests were not concerned, the Bishop would
pronounce a mere quibble : at all events we should like
to know what he would say to a candidate for deacon's
orders, who were to use a similar mode of explaining away
the effects of infant Baptism; for, if he were clever enough,
he might draw a hundred equally nice " distinctions with-
out differences.'* In our opinion, two negatives cancel
each other ; and when the judicial committee pronounced
that Mr. G. was not proved unworthif of the care of souls,
they practically and to all intents and purposes pronounc-
ed him worthy i on the principle that every man is held
innocent until he is proved guilty. We said that the
Bishop nowhere expressess his regret at having allowed
his case to be pleaded before a civil tribunal. We may
further remark that, although several of the Anglican
Bishops at the time objected, — in calm and temperate lan-
guage, of course, as became their position, — against the

20 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church: — [Sept.

decision which was actually given, not one of the whole
bench has ventured to grapple with the question in its
widest bearings, by formally protesting Ugainst the right
of such a court to meddle with the sacred truth of God.
Nay, further, up to this time nobody, except a few vision-
ary members of the Church Unions, have attempted to do
so ; the decision remains on record, and will remain to the
end of time ; and we may fairly say, that the silence of the
English people on the subject proves that they thoroughly
accept it, 'bilence' did we say? or must we not rather read
their entire approbation of the state supremacy, and of that
one decision in particular, in the mad outcry which has been
raised against the Fuseyites? Such is the result, the legiti-
mate and necessary result, of three hundred years of Pro-
testant ascendancv ; and such will ever be the case with
bodies who cut themselves oflF, or (what amounts to the
same thing) allow others to cut them off, from the sole
centre of unitv, and life, and faith, the chair of St. Peter,
the prince of the apostles. We repeat, that if she had really
believed that she held God's truth in her hands to keep,
the Anglican communion could never have allowed, we
say not such a decision to be pronounced, but such a court
to pronounce any opinion on the subject whatever : and
we assert that the lesson which the Gorham case is intend-
ed by God to teach, can be no more nor less than this;
how wicked and anti-christian a thing it is, for the Church
of God to league itself with those worldly powers against
which she was set up to wage unflinching warfare ; and
also how signally God punishes those who, like the Israel-
ites of old, in the days of Samuel, forsake the appointment
of the Lord their God, and choose for themselves an earthly
monarch ; or who cry out with the same people at a later
period, " We will not have this man to reign over us,'*
•' We have no king but Csesar V

His Lordship, as our readers may remember, closed his
celebrated letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury last year,
by formally declaring that, on account of the heresy with
which His Grace was infected, he could no longer hold com-
munion with him. Dr. Philpotts still not only maintains
that in so doing he was fully justified, but confesses that
if he himself was wrong, and ** if the Archbishop had not,
by instituting Mr. Gorham, become a fautor of heretical
tenets,'^ and so '^forfeited his right to Catholic communion'*
— then *^any one of his com-proviucial Bishops who there-

1851.] Canterbttry and Exeler. 21

upon renounced communion with him, would himself, by
so doing, have deserved to be put out of the pale of the
Church/' (p. 14.) He then proceeds to justify himself, by
expressing a ' 'wish that subsequent consideration and expe-
rience had weakened his confidence in the fitness and neces*
sity of the step taken by him. But,'' he adds, '^ it has
been far otherwise." In spite of the powerful attack, which
nine years ago the Bishop of Exeter thought fit to make
upon his Grace's opinions, it seems that the Archbishop
has again, in 1851, brought to light the charge which he
delivered to the clergy of Chester in 1841, appealing to it
as a prophetic wammg as to the Romeward tendencies
of the Oxford school of opinion. And this it is, as we
said above, which gives his Lordship an opportunity of
again attacking the obnoxious charge, part of the contents
of which we have already laid open to our readers.

In that charge, the present Archbishop had selected two
main objects of attack in the Oxford Tract writers — the
doctrine of Justification, and that of the Church. It was
not wonderful, he thought, that men who preached the
atonement with reserve, should go wrong upon the ques-
tion, " how sinful man becomes just in the sight of God,"
and according to their view of this cardinal matter, attri-
bute a greater share in the work of man's salvation to the
Church and its outward ordinances, than he and his school
of opinion were disposed to allow. Accordingly, in the
true spirit and almost in the phraseology of the thirty-nine
articles, he declares that the Church is not a Divine insti-
tution, or a life-giving ordinance, not the visible authority
ordained of God to dispense His gifts to man, not *^the
only way to eternal life," — (though by the way Bishop
Pearson, a former occupant of the See of Chester, thinks
difierently,) — but simply ^* the company of believers :" and
by consequence he asserts, that "it ought not to be so put
forward as to be interposed instead of Christ as the
mediator between God and man." His Grace then
insists that it is by an individual act of faith in Christ,
and by it alone, that we are brought near to Him : " I
examine the word of God, and there I find all its promises
annexed to individual faith. Can I venture," he asks,
*' to turn aside from this, and claim the promises as a mem-
ber of the Church?" And again, " so dangerous is that
system of rehgious teaching, which places salvation (though
it may be only virtually) in the Church; makes the

22 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church: — [Sept.

Church the prominent object, and would lead us in prac-
tice to depend upon a supposed union with Christ through
the Church ; instead of those evidences by which scripture
teaches us to examine ourselves whether we be in the

faith/^ " The Church/' he complains, *' has been madd

by the Oxford school, first an abstraction, and then a per-
son, and then a Saviour/' Now, believing as his Grace
does in the rationalistic theory, according to which the
soul gains access to its Maker by an act of its own indi-
vidual faith, of course we are prepared to find that he also
subscribes most heartily to that unholy statement which,
as he says, " came fresh from our Reformers,** to the effect
that *^we are justified in the sight of God by faith only."
We shall not now wade through the pages which Br.
Philpotts employs in showing the unscriptural nature and
the evil tendency of that *' articulus stantis aut cadentis
ecclesise.** We will only remark, as in effect we have
already remarked, that if the Bishop finds his own view
supported by the liturgy, the Archbishop has as certainly
the articles on his side : to these he can safely retire and
entrench himself behind them : for he knows that they
expressly say, that 'Sve are justified by ftiith only,** and
declare that such a doctrine is " very full of comfort,** — as
of course it is to the careless and the worldling, or it would
never have been broached by the Anglican Reformers.
After this, how can the Bishop of Exeter allow Priests
and Deacons to go on subscribing the articles before him,
when he expressly states that, ** the apostles often speak
of our being justified by faith, but never by faith only,
much less by faith alone : in other words they were not
solijidians ? One of them says, that ** a man is justified

by works, and not by faith only ;'* the same apostle

says, that "faith is dead, being alone.** (Letter, p. 21, 22.)
Here, however, are two prelates of the same Establishment
at open issue, the one stigmatizing the union of works with
faith towards man*s justification as a departure from the
articles, nay, as Popish, and *'by implication, c?m/wA;**
while the other as plainly avows, that if "to speak of for-
giveness or works of mercy, as availing to obtain remission
of sins before God,** be a departure from the spirit of the
articles, he "would never more, by the grace of God, permit
himself to act as Bishop in a Church which so openly contra-
dicts the plain teaching of our Lord.** (p. 27.) Need we
further proof to shew us that the Anglican Establishment

1851.} Canterbury and Exeter. " 23

is a house divided against itself, or to make us congratulate
ourselves that our lot is not cast in its troubled waters ?
So.'true it is, that where the appeal practically lies to each
man's private judgment, there must be parties and
schisms ; it could not be otherwise by the very law of
human nature. But from these and other like disputes,
by God's grace, we repeat that tt;^ are happily free. In
the Church of God we have a living, teaching , and divine
authority, to which we look for guidance on such matters
as these ; an authority on which we can calmly and
securely rely, for we believe that Her decision is to us the
voice of God, and that the Holy Ghost now, as in the
time of St. Leo, speaks by the mouth of St. Peter, in
the person of his successor. However Anglicans may per-
plex themselves with endless questions as to faith and
works, we rejoice to know that the heresy of Jansenius has
long since been condemned and driven from the bosom of
the Church ; and while we confess that faith in Christ does
justify us, " because faith is the beginning of men's salva-
tion, the foundation and root of aill justification," (Cone.
Trid. Sess. vi. cap. 8.) we still are taught to believe, that

"if any one shall say that the just man does not

truly merit, by the good works which he has performed, —
though the grace of God, and the merits of Jesus Christ,
whose living member he is — an increase of grace and life
everlasting," such an one is anathema. (Canon 32.) And
again, on the same authority we anathematize any one who
says, ** that the just, who have persevered to the end in
virtue, and in observance of the divine commands, ought
not to expect and hope for an everlasting retribution from
God, through His mercy and the merits of Jesus Christ,
as the reward of his good works performed in the Lord."
(Canon 26.)

As to the hostility which his Grace exhibits against the
doctrine of a visible Church, as the abiding Sacrament of
Christ's presence, and the authorized dispenser of His own
gifts and graces to man, we may dismiss it with a single
remark, namely, that it is the natural and necessary
result of a disbelief in the doctrine of the Incarnation of
our blessed Lord. If men really, and truly, and practi-
cally believe that great and central doctrine, they must
believe in one visible Church, in which all Christian truth
is embodied, and which shall last to the end of time. High-
Church Anglicans, we are aware, profess to believe this ;

24 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church: — [Sept.

but how they can at heart believe it and not go on to its
immediate consequence, the irvfallihility of the Churchy
we are at a loss to know. How the visible Church of
Christ can live to the end of time, inspired, as they pro-
fess to hold, by the Holy Ghost ever present in Her, and
yet they not believe her to be infalUble, is a phenomenon
of mental inconsistency which passes our poor understand-
ing. How can the body which they confess to be inde-
fectible, and to have in her the indwelling spirit of truth,
be other than unerring truth ? Without a doubt, ^* the pro-
cess of individualizing the members of the Church, to the
neglect of its essentially corporate nature,'' (which is the
Archbishop's line,) is certainly opposed to ** the whole
tenor of the teaching of our Lord and of His apostles:"
but in common fairness we must go on to say, that when
Bishop Philpotts sets right his Metropolitan on this sub-

i'ect, he ought not to quote that part of a text which favours
lis own theory, and omit the words which bear incontro-
vertible evidence to the main position of the Catholic faith.
When he quotes our blessed Lord's words, (p. 33.) ^* On this
rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it," to prove the visibility of the Church, —
on what principle of fairness can his Lordship suppress
the other words which tell us what that rock is, and make
that visible Church to depend upon His chief apostle, ** I
say unto Thee, Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will
build my Church?" It is in the name of controversial
candour and fairness, that we ask the question of his
Lordship. In like manner, we could assert from Holy
Scripture/^ There is no God."

Dr. Philpotts next touches upon certain heretical doc-
trines which are at least tacitly countenanced, if not open-
ly held at this day, by the various members of the Angli-
can bench. We always thought that there was a considera-
ble amount of heresy to be found among them, and therefore
we are not surprized to find there even such open and avowed
denials of the faith as those with which the IJishop of
Exeter has furnished us. It is undeniable, if we may
believe his Lordship's word, that the same Archbishop
who so strongly censures a ** reserve " in case of the doc-
trine of the Atonement, not only keeps in the back ground
the tenet of Regeneration in and by the Sacrament of
Baptism, but openly declares to one at least of his clergy,
that he thinks it ''an unwise and dangerous doctrine on

185i.] Canterbury and Exeter. 25

which to base public teaching/* On this principle of
reserve, a sermon in which one of * Her Majesty's Clergy'
says that " at the font we put on Christ and are regene-
rated, or made new creatures in Him ; the old world of sin
and wrath passing away, and all things becoming new in
our new birth to grace and reconciliation to God, ' is cen-
sured by the same Archbishop for its " bold '* and ** dan-
gerous ** statement. Another Bishop of a central diocese,
— we believe the brother of a late high legal functionary of
the Crown, — warns his Clergy against the use of the word
** Catholic,'* as u. party word, (!) and expresses his regret
that it should have been retained in the liturgy/' (!) And
in a southern diocese, administered by the brother of the
Protestant Primate, there is a Clergyman who is still
unable to procure his advancement to the Established
Priesthood, because he declines to assert, that no myste-
rious change passes upon the sacred elements in the act of
Consecration. Now, if this same gentleman were to go
into the diocese of Exeter, he would, doubtless, meet with
immediate promotion. And does not all this argue a
Church not only heretical, but also '* divided against
itself" in the very heresies which it embodies and sup-
ports ? And what shall we henceforth think of a com-
munion whose Bishops, upon the delivery of the Gorham
decision, " ^fter long^and repeated deliberation,'' refused
to make any declaration " as to the efficacy of Infant Bap-
tism, though they spoke out loudly and with tolerable
imanimity against the recent ^'Aggression " of his Holi-
ness? \Vith what face, we ask, can the followers of Dr.
Pusey now put forth their claim to Catholicity ? Had the
Anglican Episcopate really^ believed in its own inherent
powers of defining the Church's truth for members of its
own Establishment, is it credible that they should not
have met together on the very day when they knew that
that decision was about to be pronounced, and then and
there drawn up and signed a formal declaration, and for-
warded it by that day s post to every Clergyman in their
dioceses, and gone down each to their cathedral cities, and
there from the steps of the altar, on the following Sunday,
openly excommunicated all persons, lay and clerical, who
snould be found to aid and abet as "fautors" of such
" heretical tenets ?"

It seems that Dr. Pusey, (and possibly others also,) have
drawn down considerable obloquy on the High-Chmch

26 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church: — [Sept.

movement, by the publication of certain Catholic books
of devotion, on which they have first exercised their
private judgment, by removing all that is not to be recon-
ciled with an arbitrary standard which they dignify with
the title of "the teaching of the English Church/' We
will not now discuss the question as to whether the Eng-
lish Establishment has any ** teaching" at all, or if so,
what that " teaching'* is. But we will only remark,
" en passant,'' that the case is the same with the Bishop
of Exeter as with the great majority of (so-called) High-
Churchmen ; the One doctrine of the Catholic Church on
which they stumble is not transubstantiation, not prayer
for the dead, or the *' mediation of saints ;" no, not eveu
auricular confession, or the Eucharistic Sacrifice ; but the
*' all but divine honour"* which is paid to Her of Whom it
was said by an angel's tongue that She was "full of grace,"
who was inspired to declare that "all generations"
should call Her " Blessed," and Who alone of women was
ennobled to be the pure and spotless Mother of the Incar-
nate God, On this one head. Dr. Philpotts — whose' pri-
vate judgment has led him to accept, as probably true, very
many detached portions and fragments of the Catholic
Faith — exclaims in indignant terms, (p. 51.) " Such books
would seem to me worthy of all censure, and the Clergy-
men who distribute them, of exemplary punishment. In
truth, I cannot understand why such persons have not
been proceeded against." Neither can we, considering
how easy it is for a Bishop, in this land of enlightened
justice, to execute summary punishment on any of his
Clergy who are caught tripping in the direction of Rome.
" Prayer for the dead," according to Archbishop 'Sumner,
would be a "vain superstition;" in the diocese of Exeter
it is a " lawful," and doubtless a laudable custom. lu
the Catholic Church now-a-days, just as in early times,
the sign of the cross enters into every part of our public
services, our private devotions, and the ordinary minutiae
of daily life. In the diocese of Worcester or Manches-
ter, we suppose that it would meet with open scorn ; even
his Lordship of London seems to think that there may

* Of course here it is insinuated, that we Catholics are' guilty of
idolatry. But the Bishop's words refute his own accusation ; for if
the honour paid be anything short of ' divine,* we do not see haw
any Protestant can call that idolatrous.

1851.] Canierhunj and Exeter. 27

be " a superstitious use!' of that sacred emblem of our
most Holy Faith; and his brother of Exeter thinks, that
" in the present state of the Church, a faithful and dis-
creet Clergyman would be very cautious how he recom-
mended the use of it."' (' Reserve" affain !) As to Cru-
cifixes, ** although/' according to his Lordship, '' there is
nothing, in itself, wrong'" — (how can there be ?) — ** in hav-
ing pictures, or even other effigies, which may set before
our minds the great act of our Redeemer's love ;" yet it
seems that, in his Lordship's opinion, they are even more
"dangerous" than crosses themselves, because of the
*' idolatrous purposes which they have been made to serve"
with us. We must confess that the only " dreadful
abuse" that we have ever found flowing from their use,
hrls been the excitement in individuals of lively and
vivid feelings as to the reality of the great scene enacted
upon Calvary, and a corresponding increase of devotion
towards our Blessed Lord, based upon a realization of
His perfect Humanity.

As to *' mediation of saints," which is condemned by
the Archbishop, his Lordship of Exeter sufficiently realizes
the idea of the Church as one great *' family in heaven and
earth," to believe that the souls of the faithful departed
do exercise the communion of saints by praying for their
brethren in the flesh ; but he will not allow that they are
to be invoked, nor indeed that they " are cognizant of par-
ticular things now passing upon earth." (pp. 52, 53.) The
former, he says, is Catholic, the latter is mere Popery. The
Archbishop denies that there can be any propitiatory virtue
in the Sacrifice of th« Holy Eucharist ; and we fully agree
with him in believing that the Anglican Establishment
does not even claim for what its members call *^ the sacra-
ment," any such propitiatory virtue, except in the most
ambiguous terms ; still less do we believe that the Angli-
cans have a sacrifice at alL The very idea of sacrifice
involves some propitiation, and the Catholic Church has
never taught that the Sacrifice of the Altar has any propi-
tiatory power except in union with that one great sacrifice
which it represents, and whose merits it pleads before the
Father — the atonement once made upon the Cross.* Auri-

* We are rejoiced to extract the following passage from his Lord-
8hip*s Pastoral, as a Catholic could scarcely desire to see the true

28 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church: — [Sept.

cular Confession, or, as Mr. Dodsworth calls it, ''the admi-
nistration of the Sacrament of Pe'nance/* has met with suf-
ficient rebuke in one or two Anglican dioceses, to show us,
beyond a doubt, that it is alien to the spirit of a Keformed
and Protestant Church.^*^ But as long as that rite is not
enforced and made "part of the ordinary discipline of
Christian life,^' the Bishop of Exeter approves it ; con-
fining it, however, to '' the two cases where it is prescribed
in the Book of Common Prayer, namely, either for the
quieting of the conscience in preparation for the Holy
Communion, or when a sick person, feeling his con-
science troubled with any weighty matter, is to be moved
to special confession of his sins/^ (p. 67.) Now on this head
it is ob\ious to remark, first, that his Lordship practically
makes it a luxury to which sickness is the only title;
and secondly, that, humanly speaking, there is but little
chance of any person, brought up as Protestants are,
without the practice of confession as " a part of the ordi-
nary discipline of Christian life,'* ever feeling his con-
science sufficiently troubled with the sense of sin, either
before the receiving of the Holy Communion, or even on
his death-bed, to be led thereby to voluntarjr confession.
What does he, and what can he know ot sin without
habitual confession ? Better far abolish it altogether, as
the Bishop of Worcester honestly and openly does, than

doctrine of the Holy Sacrifice stated in better terms. " Although
once [for all] offered, that sacrifice, be it remembered, is ever-living
and continuous — made to be continuous by the Resurrection of our

Lord As then the Sacrifice is continuous, its propitiatory

virtue is continuous, and the fulness of the propitiation is pleaded
for the whole Church, wheresoever the commemoration of it is
exhibited in the Eucharist. And the Church on earth continually
cries 'Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi/ not "that tookest
away," but 'that still takest* " (p. 54.)

♦ And jet an Anglican Clergyman, Mr. Gresley, of Lichfield, has
recently published a volume on the great need and benefits of confes-
sion. We will believe that private confession is really part and parcel
of the Anglican system, when we see a bond fide confessional huUt and
regularly attended by Mr, Oresley in his own Cathedral, Till then we
must be excused for believing that* his words are mere ^idla
theory. We are willing to leave the result of such a step in the
Landt} of his Lordship of Lichfield, and his Grace of Canterbury.

1851.] Canterbury and Exeier. 29

tbud compromising the matter by retaining its name with-
out its power, and deluding persons by the use of the
keys which the Anglican body disowns. Of course in what
we have here said we are granting, for Ihe sake of argu-
ment, what we are by no means disposed to allow, the
validity of Anglican absolution, administered, not by an
itinerant Clerg^Tnan in dioceses and parishes with which
he has no connection, but even by the so-called "Parish
Priest*' within his own cure.

Yet, although he speaks in such very qualified terms
of approval concerning these and other Catholic doctrines
and practices. Dr. Phil potts complacently assures his
Clergy that he is *' very far from wishing to discourage
them from teaching High-Catholic doctrine/* nay, that
he "warmly commends it, if done with discretion, and due
consideration of the ability of their people to receive it.'*
(p. 64.) Archbishop Sumner, on the contrary, expresses his
confidence that the Clergy will never be wanting* in resist-
ing all attempts "to weaken or ^v\)\evi the JProtestant
jfaith ;'* and he tells the laity that " their principal duty
is to promote the teaching and preaching of it.' Now
we are not going to discuss the question as to how much
of " High- Catholic doctrine*' the Bishop of Exeter may
hold on his own personal conviction;^ for whatever that
amount may be, as long as he continues to reject one
single doctrine propounded to him by the Church as part

of Her one faith, then it is plain that he holds even the
detached truths which he professes on an heretical prin-^
ciple, and so is really, after all, a mere Protestant, and
nothing more, however he may shrink from acknowledg-
ing the term. And just so all High- Anglicans who talk
of " holding Catholic views" in the AngRcan Establish-
ment, however good and true may be their tenets in the
abstract, are yet Protestants in principle. As he who
breaks one of God's commandments breaks all, so no one
can really hold the Catholic faith who does not hold it sim-
ple and unreservedly, as taught him by the living autho-
rity of the Church, speaking to him in the name of God.
This it is to be a Catholic. But as long as men reniain
in the Protestant Establishment, in spite of their individual
convictions as to the truth of certain parts of Catholicity,
they must partake of the colour and complexion, nay, and
of the nature too, of that miserable system in which they
are content to live. Thus, inconsistently enough with his

30 Antagonist Sjfstems in the Anglican Church: — X^^P^*

position, the Bishop of Exeter '' avows his ignorance of
what is meant by the phrase *' the Protestant faith/'
Has he then lived for seventy years in vain ? Oh no !
Most truly and justly has he remarked that *^ Protestant'*
and *' Faith'' do not, and cannot "accord together ;" but
they disagree, not, as his Lordship says, because their
" objects' are different, (for we must beg leave to assert
that Divine truth, and not human, error, is the object
of the shafts of Protestantism,) but from a far higher rea-
son, simply because /aiYA is faithy and Protestantism is

the denial of the faith — that is. Infidelity. And eager as
his Lordship of Exeter may be to disclaim all share in such
a name and title, a Protestant he will, and must remain,
in spite of himself, as long as he continues to occupy his
Protestant See by permission of Queen Victoria. Nay,
there must be another Reformation and another Revo-
lution in the English Establishment, before he can cease
to be a Protestant; for, as is the system, such are
those who live in it ; as the body is sound or weak in
health, so will each member of it be. And since it was
by a Revolution that from Catholic it became Protes-
tant, nothing short of a counter-Revolution can change
it back again. If his Lordship still yearns after the name
of a Catholic, and desires in reality to be one, hap-
pily he has not far to seek; there is now, in England,
thanks to the goodness of the Holy See, a Church com-
plete in all Her organization, with Bishops and Priests,
deriving their mission and spiritual powers, not from Henry,
Elizabeth, or Victoria, but from the Vicar of Christ, the
successor of St. Peter, the one centre and sourcfe of all
valid jurisdiction. Her gates are ever open ; and those
who seek admittance within Her pale, never seek in vain.

The Bishop of Exeter proceeds next to draw out a brief
summary of what he calls " high Catholic doctrine." He
enters at some length, and occasionally with great force of
language, into the separate portions which constitute, with
an Anglican of the better sort at least, what he terms his
'Sacramental system.' We confess that His Lordsliip
shows some ingenuity, especially where he calls in to his
aid the Articles, *' non hos quoesitum munus in usus/*
but we can hardly congratulate him on his success.
Everyone knows that in those '"Articles" the Church
is defined on rationalistic principles, not as the one
great supernatural system and body which acts as the

1851.] Canterbury and Exeter. 31

divinely-commissioned agent of grace between God and
man, but as " a congregation of faithful men, where the
pure word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly
administered/' Now obviously this article taken in its
honest foremost sense does leave every individual Christian
the judge to himself, of what is " the pure word,'' and
what is meant by **duly " administered. Every man or
woman may interpret these points, and with equal justice,
in his or her own way. Now, his Lordship very dexterously
endeavours to dovetail in another article, in order to evade
this difficulty. The article which refers to the Creeds,
does not speak of them as authoritative documents of
necessary and objective truth, to be received as such on
the authority of the Catholic Church ; but simply asserts,
in the true spirit of the Anglican Reformers, that '^ the
three Creeds are most thoroughly to be received and
believed, for they may be proved by most undoubted war-
rant of Holy Scripture." But this is far too low and
*^ Protestant " a view for the Bishop. So he quietly turns
the tables round and writes thus, ** of the pure word of
God, the eighth article tells you where it is to be found,
even in the three Creeds." That is, while the articles
declare plainly that the Creeds are to be looked for and
found in Scripture, the Bishop as plainly affirms, that '^ the
pure word of God," or true meaning of Scripture, is to be
found in the Creeds ! Surely here is either a most ingeni-
ous artifice, or a most egregious blunder.

Again, to prove from the articles and ordinal the need
of Episcopal ordination, we think that the Bishop after all
has only shown with what " stammering lips " this doc-
trine (if it be one,) of the Anglican Establishment, is
taught in its *' ambiguous formularies."^^ The twenty-

* A communication in the Catholic Standard of July 19th, gives
a quotation from a letter by tlie Archbishop of Canterbury, in which
he ezpressely asserts his opinion that there are not more than two
members of the Anglican Episcopate who believe in the actual
necessity of Episcopal Ordination. And the matter is set at rest,
we think, by the fact that Dr. Merle d*Aubigne, in the month of
June last, though himself a Presbyterian, actually preached in one
of the Chapels belonging to the Establishment — a fact which he
himself announces by letter to the Archbishop, as a sign of -" union
and communion between the Church of England and foreign Churches
holding the essentials of Christian truth."

82 Antagonist Systems in tlie Anglican Church: — [Sept.

third article it is true, asserts the self-evident proposition
that some external mission is necessary ; that ** it is not
lawful for any man to take upon himself the ministerial
office. And the ordinal asserts another equally self-evident
proposition, that ** from the time of the apostles there have
been three orders of ministers in Christ's Church, Bishops,
Priests, and Deacons :'* but we defy the most clever con-
troversialist to prove, that in either place the Episcopal
order is asserted to be necessary, or even that " three
orders'* need exist for the future. Two isolated facts with-
out a point of connection will not warrant a logician in
drawing any conclusion therefrom ; and the matter is but
little mended if we throw into his Lordship's scale the
twenty-third article besides, which asserts that the Sacra-
ments are valid, even when administered by the hands of
evil men, because the^ act not in their own name, but in
the name and authority of Jesus Christ. Where in all
this, we ask, do we find ground for the common assertion
of High Church Anglicans, that the need of an Apostoli-
cal succession through Bishops, is expressly asserted by
*'the Church of their Baptism ?'* If she nowhere speaks
out more plainly than this concerning her own claims, it is
little wonder that so many of her members do not, or will
not hear her, or distrust her when she speaks. As to
what the Bishop alleges as the true cause, why the
preaching of a Sacramental system stinks in the nostrils
of Anglicans in general, we cordially agree with his posi-
tion. We fully hold that it is luilful unrepented sin that
lies at the bottom of it all. As Archdeacon Wilberforce
elsewhere remarks, ^^ men like in general to live at a lower
rate of accountability. '* To use his Lordship's own
words, '^ It is the natural temptation of the disobedient to
strive to shake off the responsibility of those privileges
which they neglect and defile.'' And the plain truth is,
that men do not like, in the Anglican communion, to be
told that, by virtue of their Baptism, they became "Temples
of tho Holy Ghost ;" because if that doctrine be true, tney
feel that their sins become of so much deeper dye, and
that they have no confessional to fly to. May we not add
our own conviction, that wilful sin too lies at the bottom of
the insane outcry and agitation which has so lately been
raised against our faith ? Men can sin on more safely and
securely in the easy and comfortable system of Anglican-
ism, and the stings of conscience can be more effectually

1 85 1 . ] Canterbury and Exeter. 33

(juieted in the bosom of an Erastian Establishment, than
in a community where auricular confession is made, not an
occasional luxury for a sick man's bedroom, but 'part of
the ordinary discipline of the Christian life/

And here we take our leave of the war between the
Sacramental and Anti-Sacramental Schools, which is rag-
ing in the vitals of the Anglican EstabUshment. For
three centuries these two antagonist theories (for to Angli-
cans they are nothing more,) have existed side by side
within its comprehensive pale. The *' happy family,^'
which our readers may have witnessed in Trafalgar Square,
presents but too true a picture of what may be eflFected by
a judicious mixture of terror, cruelty, and over-feeding,
towards restraing the natural tendencies to strife which
unhappily exist among some of our domestic animals. Just
so, it must be confessed, that the terror of the royal supre-
macy, the fear of Rome, and the cruel persecution which
merit, or energy, or missionary enterprise have ever expe-
rienced in and from the Anglican Establishment, have
hitherto wonderfully conspired with rich livings and pre-
bendal stalls, to keep the high and low Church factions
(not to speak of others) upon tolerably amicable terms.
But there are times which test and sift men to the bottom,
and by that process tend to bring out their principles into
bold relief. And so while the unthinking mass go on year
after year in the system of the Reformed Church, and are
content to live and die as members of a body which was
founded on compromise, exists by mutual sufferance, and
in the end is destined to die by its own hand, or of a pletho-
ric attack, — reasoning and thinking minds are led by won-
drous stirrings of their spirits to examine into this system
of imposture for themselves ; and as soon as they find
that it is only by consenting to abandon all truth as
truth that they can remain within its pale, one by one
they reject these base and unholy terms, and are drawn
by God's grace into the loving bosom of the Catholic
Church.

The recent address to their Clergy upon ritual matters,
signed by twenty-four out of the Anglican Bench, has
called forth some remarks from the Bishop in his
" Pastoral Letter ;'' but really the question at issue is a
matter of such perfect indifference to us, that we cannot
detain our readers with an account of the reasons which

VOL. XXXI.— No. LXI. 3

84 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church: — [Sept.

led his Lordship of Exeter (in conformity with his usual
practice on such occasions,) to withhold his signature. The
document itself is one of the weakest effusions that ever
proceeded from twenty-four Bishops of the English, or of
any. Church : the only question really is, whether it
betrays more want of confidence in their own authority, or
more lamentable ignorance of human nature. Neptune
may have quelled the sea with his trident, or Jupiter by
the still more simple operation of a nod ; but we much
question whether such gentle measures, coupled with soft
words, are of much avail with turbulent Anglicans : in the
course of six months it has already become waste paper, as
a measure " manifestly nugatory '^ in the eyes not only of
his Lordship, but of all Anglicans, both high and low, who
avail themselves of their inalienable right of thinking and
judging for themselves. As to the old question, whether it
was the principle of the Post-Reformation Church to
include all Catholic practices which it did not specially
prohibit — (which was once Mr. Maskeirs position,)— or to
reject all which it^ did not formally adopt, is just one of
those happy questions on which Anglicans can argue for
ever, without any hope of aniving at a settlement of the
point ; and for this plain reason, that the Reformed Church
does not seem to have acted, so far as we can ascertain, on
any principle at all. Clearly, therefore, we had better
leave well alone.

We come, in conclusion, to those two points which, after
all, constitute the gist of his Lordship's Pastoral, — the
Royal Supremacy, and the Diocesan Synod. They are
closely connected together, but as we purpose considering
the latter question in a separate paper, we shall take the
liberty of offering to our readers a few remarks as briefly
as may be, upon the actual bearing of the former upon
high Church Anglicans.

So much has been lately written upon the subject of the
Royal Supremacy over the Anglican Church, that we feel
scarcely disposed to enter upon it here at any great length.
But in spite of all that we have seen put forth to defend it in
theory, or at least to show that it is to be regarded practically
as so limited by law and reason, that it may be held consist-
ently with an acceptance of the doctrine of a visible Church,
we think that after all, the fairest way is to go back for our
estimate of it to the original documents, by which the
reigning sovereign was formally invested with supreme

1851.] Canterbury and Exeter. 85

spiritual power over the Establishment, and to the glaring
fact that, in spite of every individual^ protest, the actu^
supremacy over the Anglican Church in all spiritual mat-
ters is centred for every practical purpose in the judicial
committee of Her Majesty's Privy Council. It appears,
that one of his candidates for Anglican orders not long
ago asked Dr. Philpotts how he could subscribe the
declaration of his assent to the Royal Supremacy with a
safe conscience. His Lordship, in reply, quotes the words
of the thirty-sixth Canon, ** The King's Maiesty, under

God, is the only^ supreme governor of this realm,

as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things, or causes,
as temporal." And to prove that the meaning of these
words is not to define accurately the intent of such supre-
macy, but simply to exclude all claims on the part of the
Pope of Rome or any other cxtenial power, he quotes the
latter clause of the same Canon, which denies all "juris-
diction, power, or authority to every foreign Prince,
Prelate, State, or Potentate.'* And hence he concludes,
that no one who believes that the Queen is in any sense
" under God, supreme governor '' of the Church of Eng-
land, to the exclusion of all other claimants, need hesi-
tate to subscribe to its terms. For the limitation, how-
ever, of this power, he refers his client to the thirty-seventh
article, which thus defines the extent of Her Majesty's
authority in things spiritual. "We give not to our
Princes the ministering either of God's word or the Sacra-
ments, but only that prerogative which we have seen to be
given always to all godly princes in Holy Scripture by
God Himself, that they should rule all estates... ...whe-
ther ecclesiastical or temporal, and restrain with the
civil sword the stubborn and disobedient." And such
being the definition laid down by the English Church, " it
is not necessary," says the Bishop of Exeter, "to consider

whether any act of the State at any period or of any

subsequent sovereign, hath virtually interfered with the
inherent rights of the Church." (p. 96.) Now, in answer to
this we must observe, that although it may not be either
** necessary " or convenient for his Lordship to do so, it is
very " necessary " for us to make this enquiry. Because
if we can show that the Church of England, by any deli-
berate act of her own convocation, has wilfully resigned
into secular hands the supreme authority over matters of
faith, we may be excused for choosing to form our opinion

36 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church: — [Sept.

upon the merits of the case from what the Establishment
actually did, rather than from the professions of faithful-
ness which she makes upon paper. To talk about " the
inherent rights of the Church, * is simply to beg .the whole
question ; for what we want to discover is, whether she has
any "inherent rights *' at all, or whether she did not rather,
three centuries ago, hand them over to the eighth Henry,
or to use the phrase of Dr. Philpotts," fling them beneath
the footstool of an earthly throne ?'* One or two docu-
mentary evidences on this head will annihilate the whole
of the high Church theory, in spite of the apologies of
Andrewes, Hickes, Usher, Jackson, Taylor and Stilling-
fleet, Isaac Casaubon, or even King James himself : and
we leave our Anglican readers to defend or deny them, if
they can.

It is a fact, then, that in 1531, the Church of England in
solemn convocation, and by a ormal document recognized
in King Henry VIII. its * supreme head and governor.*
''Protectorem unicum et supremum Dominum, et quantum
per Christi legem licet, etiam supremum caput (ecclesi»
et cleri Anglicani scil.) ipsius Majestatem recognosci-
mus."'*" And it is another fact, that in the instrument
of submission f they speak thus, "We offer and promise, in
verba sacerdotii, here unto your Highness that we

»■■-- ^' ■■■■■■■■ II I ■ ——■■■■ ■■■■!,■■ M ■ ■ m, ».»^»»..»i— MM^— ^^^ I ■ ■ I ^^mm^^^^mm^^^

* Wilkins, Concil. iii. 742-5.

t**Bj this act of submission," says Mr. Lewis in his able 'Notes
on the Rojal Supremacy,' — (a book which is the more valuable,
because it was published three years before the Gorham decision
was given,) — ** by this act of submission a meaning and a force are
given to the royal title, which otherwise it needed not have had :
without this it might have been explained away, or served as a
warning to other kings and other Churches. With the tide of
Supreme Head of the Church of England, the king obtains corres-
ponding powers ; the Clergy give him authority over their delibera-
tions ; a negative voice in all their proceedings, and a power to
review and suspend the past. All laws and constitutions of the
English Church then in force, were liable to abrogation by the
king's supreme authority, and the obsolete legislation of the past,
liable at the same bidding to be quickened into life.(?) The Church
of England, in convocation represented, surrendered deliberately
all her jurisdiction into secular hands ; depriving herself of the
power to make Canons for her own guidance, and of accepting the
sentence of even an oocumenical council, unless with the consent of
the supreme cinl authority." — (pp. 12, 13.)

1851. J Canterhury and Exeter. 87

will never from henceforth enact, put in use, promnlge,
or execute any new Canons, or Constitution, Provincial,
or any other new ordinance, provincial or synodal, in our
convocations or synod in time coming ; which convocation
is, always hath been, and must he assembled only by your
high commandm,ent of writ; only your highness by your

royal assent^ shall license us to assemble our convocations,
^c and thereto give your royal absent and autho-
rity.^^ And then they go on to submit their existing body
of Canons to the judgment of " His Grace^* the King, and
to thirty-two i)ersons, lay and clerical, to be appointed
solely by his majesty. And they permit *^ his Grace and
the Cler^*' to abolish any Canons which may be thought
by them inconsistent with the laws of the realm. Here we
see put into execution the Erastian principles, put forth by
the "judicious Hooker*' in the eighth book of his Eccle-
siastical Polity, and afterwards more fully drawn out by
the infidel Hobbes : in his Leviathan — principles which, in
fact, identify the State with the Church, declaring that all
spiritual power emanates from the civil sovereign, and that
the sovereign alone has the right of committing the care of
religion to its pastors, and of appointing judges and inter-
preters of the Canonical Scriptures.

And further still, to cut off from Anglicans all ground
of pleading in defence of their position that from and
after Henry's time, ecclesiastical appeals, instead of
being carried, as had been the case hitherto, to Rome
for final decision, were to be finally settled in the
Archiepiscopal Court of Canterbury, by the English
Church herself and in her own name, we must adduce
another statute, (25 Henry VIH. ch. 19,) which declares
that " for lack of justice at, or in, any of the courts of

the Archbishop of this realm it shall be lawful

to the party grieved to appeal to the King's Majesty

in the King's Court of Chancerv ; and that upon every
such appeal, a commission shall be directed under the

Seat seal, to such persons as shall be named by the
ing's Highness, his lieirs or successors, like as in case of
appeal from the admiraVs court, (!) to hear and defi-
nitely determine such appeals." Here the appeal lies
solely to the king in Chancery : and this statute is the
oririn of the Court of Delegates, which in the year 1831,
without any remonstrance on part of the ** Establishment /'
made way for the judicial committee of the Privy Council,

88 Antagonist Systems in the Anglican Church, 8^c. [Sept.

''in which resides now'* (prophetically wrote Mr. Lewis, in
1847) '*the supreme jurisdiction of the Anglican Church."
"And here/' he adds, " we find the king judging the
causes of Bishops, possessed of the same powers, and
invested with the same jurisdiction, which once were con-
sidered to be the inalienable prerogatives of the supreme
Pontiff himself/'

How true are his words, has been since that time
proved by fact. It is in strict conformity then with the
principles which the English Church laid down for her
future guidance at the time of the Reformation, that Mr.
Gorham should have appealed from the Bishop and Arch-
bishop to the Queen as supreme ; and therefore, while we
fully admit the heretical nature of the decision actually
given, we say that in our opinion, so far from being an act
of injustice or oppression, we view in it the legitimate
action of those Erastian principles which are bound up
with the very existence — (for we cannot say ^ the life") — of
the Church of the Keforraers. Neither his Lordship of
Exeter, nor the respectable but visionary gentlemen who
compose " Church Unions," have then any right to com-
plain : they have only to sift their own principles to the
bottom, and push them on to their legitimate conclusions,
and they will be freed from their troubles. They will find
that, to be consistent, they must either abandon what they
hold to be God's sacred truth, or sooner or later quit their
position in a Church so fully and so formally committed to
what they know, and confess themselves to be, a fatal and
Erastian heresy. For ourselves, we can only say that we
deeply sympathize, (as what Catholic must not ?) in the
glowing and indignant language of Mr. Allies, in his
** See of St. Peter, ''^' and we cordially recommend it to the
careful attention of our Anglican readers, and of all whoni
it may concern. " Let those who can put their trust in
such a Church and such an Episcopate, ' (as that of the
Establishment,) " those who can feel their souls safe in
such a system, work in it, think for it, write for it, pray for
it." Let them do so, we never could. And this because
every thinking mind ^^ must repudiate either that supre-
macy " (of the Crown,) " or every notion of the Church,'*
as ^* the one divinely-constituted society, to which the

* See Preface, p. viii. also p. 150.

1851.] Tlie Synod of Exeter. 89

possession of the truth is guaranteed, and which (alone)
has a continuous mission from our Lord. The Royal
Supremacy and the Church of God, are two ideas abso-
lutely irreconcileable and contradictory/^

Art. II.— Jcte of (he Sy7iod of Exeter, kolden in tlie Chapter- House
of the Cathedral Church of Exeter, on June 25th, 26th, and
27th, 1851. (By Authority.) Murray, Albemarle Street.

WE confess that we were not surprised, considering
the boldjiess and fearlessness with which Dr. Phil-
potts carries out those opinions which he embraces, when
some six months ago he informed the world that he was
determined to hold a Synod of ^' Her Majesty's clergy'*
within his diocese, in order to satisfy the minds of himself,
and of the more ardent of his followers, and to exonerate
the Anglican Church from the Erastianism of the State
Supremacy, and the heresy of the Gorhara decision. We
say that we heard this without surprise ; for his Lordship is
by no means one of the ordinary run of Anglican prelates:
he is not content with living on an easy life in his palace, glad
to escape from the strife which rages between his '^ inferior
clergy, ' and to close his ears to their doubts and anxieties.
He is not a person who is willing, for the sake of peace,
either in his own diocese, or in the Establishment at large,
to allow things to take their course, satisfied if the system
in which his Tot is cast will only ^' last out his own time.''
Far from it : strange as it sounds to Catholic ears, he
firmly believes (what we are sure that no other one of his
twenty-seven English brethren believes,) that the Angli-
can Church is, not merely a Catholic Church, but the
Church Catholic in England ; he labours under a strong
delusion that he is himself as really and truly as S. Leo,
S. Augustine, or S, Thomas of Canterbury, a Bishop in
the Church of God, and that by consequence he has sacred
duties to perform, as in the si^ht of God — duties which ho
must not, and dare not, set aside for any earthly conside-
rations. The rest of the Anglican Episcopate, though

40 The Synod of Exeter. [Sepf.

they agree in scarcely anythiag besides, at all events are
at one in confessing the deplorable and almost hopeless
condition of their Establishment, and show not only their
real belief in their soi'disant divine office, but also their
power of united action, by doing— nothing. But the Bishop
of Exeter not only admits the difficulties which surround
the Establishment, but really sets himself to work, as he
imagines, to remedy them, in spite of the supineness of
his brethren, and the frowns of the minister of the day.

We will try and throw ourselves back, as far as possible,
into the feelings with which we first heard of the coming
Diocesan Synod. His Pastoral letter had informed us
that he intended to hold it in his own cathedral city,
during the mouth of June. It had been pronounced " not
unlawful ^' (which we supposed meant " lawful,^ ^ by Lord
John Russell and the Solicitor General, in their places in
the House of Commons ; and thence we argued that, in
spite of all possible obstacles, which refractory clergymen
seemed inclined to throw in the way, it would probably
** come off.'' But when we remembered that the English
Church itself cannot meet in a Provincial Synod, without
leave of the Crown, and when met cannot enact a single
Canon for its own guidance without a further Royal
assent : we were naturally led to ask, of what practical
good this Diocesan Synod could possibly be ^ to those
Anglicans who feel aggrieved at the recent decision of the
judicial committee? If it were likely to^ have any real
practical effect towards maintaining the independence of
the Establishment, we argued (and rightly too, we believe,)
that Her Majesty's government would never permit it to
assemble. When assembled, too, we knew that it could
not and did not intend to enact a single canon ; thus much
we had learned from his Lordship's "Pastoral letter.'*
What then was it intended to do? And with all our
thought and enquiry we at last found out that it was
mainly intended to re-affirm, if possible, a truth which was
ruled and settled once for all at Constantinople, nearly
1,500 years ago, and which every clergyman of the Diocese
of Exeter outwardly professes to believe every Sundav, at
the least, of his life. And why all this? We were told it
was, because that Catholic truth, ** I acknowledge one
Baptism for the remission of sins," had been declared
by the hisrhest Court of Appeal to be an open question in

1851 .] The Synod of Exeter. 41

the Establishment, as in fact it always had been for some
300 years.

Still we could not help asking, '* What will have been
gained by the Anglican Church when this doctrine has been
re- affirmed by the Synod of Exeter ? Mr. Gorham him-
self, and all other clergymen of his own way of thinking, will
go on subscribing the form of words in the Nicene creed
without hesitation, and then the Bishop,^' we felt, "will
be only just where he was before. He will have tacked, it
is true, but he will have made no way on his tack. If
Dr. Philpotts intended his Synod (provided it should
assent to his view,) to be regarded as a protest on the part
of the whole English Church, against the recent hereti-
cal decision, how could he possibly fail to see that, on the
old principle ^^Exceptio vrobat regularriy^ it would be to
thinking minds but an additional proof that the Establish-
ment, as a hodify so far from renouncing that decision,
welcomes and applauds it? Surely, if one diocese alone,
out of twenty-eight protests against it, by a considerable
majority, or even unanimously, what will that be,^' we
naturallv asked, " but a plain proof that the rest accept
it ?'' We thouffht, therefore, froni the very first, that little
or no gain could arise from the meditated step, which Her
Majesty's ministers would have been very quick to pro-
nounce unlawful, if they thought that it would tend to
forward the Bishop's peculiar views, or have any practical
eftect beyond that of weakening, and perhaps of breaking
up, the party with which he has generally acted. " But
of this,'' we thought and said, " we shall be better able to
judge, when we learn at what decision the Synod actually
arrives." Such, we say, were our musings on the subject
five months ago. Time has gone on, and has revealed to
us that we were not mistaken in our surmises. June came,
and with it the Synod; its proceedings were solemn
and orderly, just as those of a real Synod ; and, to judge
from the way in which High- Church Anglicans speak and
write, everytliing was most satisfactory to the Bishop and
his party. The Guardian, Morning Chronicle, and Eng-
lish Churchman, all speak in tones of triumphant exulta-
tion. Of the Archdeacons and cathedral clergy, a very fair
proportion were present ; and each Rural Deanery being
nivited to send up two delegates as representatives of the
** Bucolic " clergy — for so Sidney Smith styled the paro-
chial ministers — only two deaneries were sufficiently unduti-

42 Tlie Synod of Exeter. [Sept

fill or uncourteous to say *' no *' to their Bishop's summons.'
Two also of the *' representatives '* chosen, were absent ;
hut upon the whole Her Majesty's clergy in the diocese of
Exeter, seem to have been fairly represented, the entire
number present being 111, out of, we believe, about 800.
The results of their proceedings, too, seem to have been
tolerably unanimous; the declaration as to the divine
grace given to infants in Holy Baptism, as well as that
which pronounces the appointment of a Catholic Bishop of
Plymouth, ^ schismatical and void,** being both carried
without a dissentient voice ; a third declaration of the
Synod, professing ^* hearty and unalterable attachment*'
to the Anglican Church, and *' thankfully acknowledging
its ministry by Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, to have
descended to them by unbroken (?) succession from the Holy
Apostles,*' being passed with only five dissentients. We
will not weary our readers with detailing all the discussion
which followed upon *^ Church'* Education, Training
Schools, School Inspectors, &c. ; we will not draw for
their amusement (though we could with ease) the picture
of an aged minister of the Establishment, rising up in the
spirit of most perfect evfjOeia to confess his own blindness,
and deeply lamenting that he had ever allowed the prac-
tice of public catechising to fall into disuse, — a piece of
carelesness and folly to which he did not scniple to
attribute the growth of dissent in his parish. We think
that for the good old gentleman's comfort we could prove,
if space permitted us, that after all it is not himself but the
system of his *' Church*' that is in fault: but we must
pass on to notice another point. The establishment of
agricultural colleges in rural districts on the principles of
celibacy and religious self-denial and devotion, was nega-
tived by the Exeter Svnod, as we might expect, on the
ground that, first, such institutions would occasion an
unnatural and unjustifiable severance of domestic duties ;
(what is this in plain EngUsh but, ** we can't do without
our wives and families ?**) secondly, that the requisite qua-
lifications would rarely be found in individuals wilUng to
undertake " the office ;** (what is this but '* we confess that
we have not got the true Missionary Spirit?**) and lastlv,
because " if not so superintended, such institutions would
tend only to aggravate the evils which they are designed
to obviate.** (And what does this mean, but "we are
afraid of trying the experiment for fear of risking a

1851.] Tlie Synod of Exeter. 43

failure ?*') Of course, as the English Church knows noth-
ing of the doctrine of particular vocations, aud has no
means of ascertaining the real bent of the minds of its
members, or of guiding their zeal and their talents into
proper channels, in fact, as it does not and dare not pre-
tend to the gift of the ** discerhing of spirits,'* even in the
slightest degree, we feel that the By nod have come to by-
far the wisest and safest decision which they could have
adopted, in resolving to " let well alone'* in this particular
case.

Of course, were we inclined to enter into matters foreign
to our immediate purpose, the Synod itself and its bearing
on High- Church Anglicans, we might fill page after page
in controverting the statements of the Synod as to their
own Church's apostolical succession and Catholic charac-
ter, as well as to the ** schismatical " nature of the act of
our Holy Father Pope Pius IX., in establishing first a
Catholic See, and now a Catholic Bishop, at Plymouth.
We are not surprised to hear Anglicans loudly affirming
their own Catholicity — they have no trumpeter out of their
own body to do so for them; — or dwelling on the 'apostolic
succession' of their Bishops, in spite of the unanimous
opinion of all Christendom, from East to West, against
them. ** To praise Athenians before Athenians is no
hard task." This is an ancient proverb, and it strictly
applies to the case before us; and Anglicans for the most
part are sharp enough to see that if they cannot, by hook
or by crook, make out their claim to a divine mission, their
*' occupation is gone." It is very natural then, and perhaps
very pardonable, in the ^ Synod," to dwell upon such topics
as these ; for they did not of course meet together in
order collectively to commit ecclesiastical suicide ; they
met to judge their own case dispassionately, and to pro-
nounce an acquittal on themselves ; but in the name of
common fairness we must ask them one question :•— The
Synod have recorded "their full conviction, that seces-
sion from this (the Anglican) Church, being a sound part
of the Catholic Church, to any other religious community,
is in itself an act of schism, and as such, perilous to salva-
tion ; and in particular that secession to the Roman
community in England, is not only an act of schism, but
involves also the abandonment of truth for error." Grant-
ing, therefore, (what we by no means can allow, except
for the sake of argument,) that the Anglican establish-

44 The Synod of Exeter. [ Sept

ment is a part, or even 'a sound part/ of the Catholic
Church, we ask for a plain reason why the holy Roman
Church should be singled out as that one communion of
all others, to which it is *' in particular '^ *' perilous" for
Anglicans to submit, as ''involving "in /?arficwZar *'the
abandonment of truth for error." Is it that the Catholic
Church has been distinguished from all other professedly
Christian bodies for laxity in adhering to the great doc-
trine of the ever-blessed Trinity ? or in enforcing a firm
belief in the reality of the Incarnation of our Lord and
Saviour ? No : on these heads, it is admitted by even the
most violent of our opponents, that the Roman Church
has always shown herself the bulwark of orthodoxy : nay,
even such Protestants as Dr. Sumner allow, that in spite
of all our errors we hold in our creed the great truths of
the gospel. (Charge of the Bishop of Chester, 1841,

E. 38.) Is it that we give honour all but divine to
er who was the honoured instrument whereby **God
was manifested in the flesh ?" But almost every Angli-
can writer agrees in coi^essing that, in this respect, the
schismatical Greek Church in the East is far more
" idolatrous " than ourselves. Is it not rather because
it was felt by the Synod, that in order to gain the
sympathy and confidence of the Protestant laity, it was
necessary to say something or other strong against the
Church of Rome ? to throw overboard, as it were, a tub
for the Protestant whale to play with, in order to draw off its
attention from the Catholic yearnings — for such after all
we must regard them — of the High- Church party ? We
will only add that, on the hypothesis of the Anglican com-
munion being ^* a sound part," or part at all of the Catho-
lic Church, the erection of the See of Plymouth, by the
Pope is, undoubtedly, an act of schism. But in an argu-
ment such as the Synod uses to condemn us, who does not
see that the whole force lies in the truth or falsehood of the
Prosyllogism embodied in its premisses? And it is this
which we indignantly deny as a ten times refuted fallacy.
The English Church is not, and never has been, at least
since the Reformation, ^^a part of the Catholic Church/*
Where is the proof that it has ever been recognised as
such by any other Episcopal body besides itself? Assertion
is not argument ; we want a witness to the character of
Anglicanism. The Church of Rome disoMms the Angli-
can Bishops ; so does the Greek schismatical Church, even

1 85 1.] The Synod of Exeter. 45

more completely than we disown them. And if Anglicans
still plead for toleration on the " branch *' theory, we
triumphantly make answer that branches imply a trunk ;
and what, and where, we ask, is the trunk on which, by
the confession of all men, the English Church once grew
and flourished, but from which it now lies severed ? And
is the ancient parent trunk to be that one communion
which, as a dutiful child, the English Church ought to
denounce, as " in particular " perilous and soul-destroy-
ing ? If the bough of a forest oak could speak as it lies
upon the ground, do you think it would earnestly warn
the woodman, if he had anv idea of grafting it in again, to
be careful '* in particular ' not to restore it to its parent
trunk?

Weak as this Anti-Catholic declaration is, we now come
to that which is, after all, j)ar excellence^ the weak point
of the Synod. If there is one grievance greater than
another under which High-Churcn Anglicans profess to
labour, it is the practical workina of the Royal Supre-
macy. By their own confession, they admit that the mere
authoritative reversal of the Gorham decision, even if it
could be efiected, would not go to the bottom of the
matter. They are wise enough to see that if the axe is to
be laid to the root of the tree, it must be done only by
procuring that this Supremacv be, in some way or other,
altered, modified, or limited. They confess that mere decla-
rations and protests on the subject of Baptism, are but so
many expedients for getting rid of the immediate weight off
their consciences, so many means of easing, for the moment,
a shoe which pinches them. But they know and feel that
it is in the Royal Supremacy, and in that Supremacy,
not merely as practically exercised by Queen Victoria, but
as theoretically defined under Henry and Elizabeth, that
the real gist of the matter lies. They are miserable, and
must be so ; because they find themselves in a position
where they are called upon to obey two masters, whose
commands are quite irreconcileabfe. And so they are
driven, each in the depth of his spirit, to find out some
principle upon which they can continue at the same time,
to hold the conflicting doctrines of a real visible Spiritual
Society, such as they conceive the Establishment to be,
and of an equally real and equally visible State control.
Now the adiustment of these two conflicting duties, or at
least some aeclaration as to the way in which both can be

46 TTie Synod of Exeter. [Sept.

held by Anp:licans, and theoretically at least defended,
was, we maintain, not merely a matter which ought to
have been discussed and settled in the Exeter Synod, but
the first and foremost part of their deliberations. And
how has the " Synod '* dealt with this difficulty ? ^ It has
not even ventured to allude to it : it has altogether ignored
it. In the ** Acts of the Synod,'' as published " by autho^
rity,'* we can find no record of any attempt to grapple with
the question. Now, in order to make the results of this
** Synod '* satisfactory to the most ** safe '* and moderate
Anglican, we ask, was not some discussion of this subject
needed, nay, was not some strong resolution or declaration
necessary, to warrant the '* Guardian ^ and other High-
Church papers and pamphlets in indulging in their tones of
triumphant exultation? We confess for ourselves, that
anything short of this point ought to be regarded by Angli-
cans, upon their own principles, as either an unpardon-
able omission in the Bishop and his party, or an egregious
admission of the essential weakness of their ** position."
" But still,'* we fancy some Anglican may reply to us,
*' in spite of all its short-comings, surely the Exeter Synod
is, at all events, a sign of life in the English Church.
Granted that it has not done all that we could have wished,
Btill you cannot deny that the case of a Church which
shows such signs of life as this, is a most hopeful one."
** Signs of life," indeed ! we grant it willini^ly. Let us
see what, after all, is the worth of this admission. We
will take an instance in point to show, (however parar
doxical it may seem,) that signs of life, mean signs of
decay and approaching death. A gentleman meets a friend
whom he has not seen for years; meets him apparently
in the very bloom of health and strength. He salutes
him, and begins to congratulate him on his healthy looks.
"I am glad to see you, Sir, showing such signs of life ;
really when I see you I cannot help acknowledging that
vou exhibit some symptoms of healthful existence still.
You don't seem likely to die to-morrow." **I thank
you ; but really you astonish me; thank God, I never was
better in my life. You talk of my showing 'signs of
life ;' you really can't mean to say that you see anything
amiss in me ; if you do, pray tell me at once. You really
speak as if you thought 1 was on my last legs, and had but
a little time to live." Such would be the answer: any
one in his sound senses knows perfectly well, that we never

1 85 1 .] Tlie Synod of Exeter. 47

begin to dwell on such subjects as " signs of life/* until
health and strength are failing or gone, and the body lies

£ rostrated on a bed of chronic sickness. It is when matters
ave gone thus far, and not till then, that we strain our
attention to watch for symptoms to inspire us with some
faint hopes of the patient's eventual recovery. Then we
mark and note them eagerly. Apply the case. Would
the Anglican Church, or at least its High-Church mem-
bers, think you, be so constantly dwelling on the few
** signs of life'* which they fancy they can observe in it, if
they were not at heart conscious that their patient's case
is at least very bad, and if they were not anxious to buoy
themselves up with some fallacious hopes of its recoverj^
though they see their patient itself rapidly growing worse?
A man upon his death-bed looks out anxiously enough
for these " signs of life ;*' when he is in good health, he
feels that the very mention of their name is simply ridicu-
lous. We assert, therefore, that we could not wish for a
more complete tacit acknowledgment of the hopeless nature
of the malady under which the Establishment is now
suffering, than the constant way which its members have
of dwelling with such complacency and self-gratulation on
its *' signs of life.*' " There is life in the old dog yet,'* is
a confession that the aforesaid dog has not long to live :
and so *^signs of life** are, to reflecting minds, but signs of
approaching dissolution.

*'But, after all, is it nothing to the English Church
thus to have convened a Synod of the diocese of Exeter,
and to have re-affirmed the impunged doctrine of Baptis-
mal Regeneration?** Our answer is plain. It is some"
things beyond a doubt; but it is a ** something** which
leaves your case even more hopeless than ever. It has
served to shew your weakness, your essential weakness.
By your own confession the whole English Church is
involved in heresy by the Gorham decision, unless she
repudiate it. Out of the twenty-eight dioceses of England
and Wales, one, and one only, has repudiated that deci-
sion by a large majority. What must we then believe
concerning the other twenty-seven ? Of course that they are
willing to abide by it. And if our Anglican friends assert
their belief that a majority of the clergy in each diocese
would be found to .disown that decision, we reply that
if so, their case becomes still worse, for if such be the
case, why do they remain silent ? why do not the Anglican

48 The Synod of Exeter. [Sepf.

prelates convene their clergy, and why do not the Clergy
themselves speak out ? And then after all, as we said
above, the re-affirmation of one particular clause in the
Nicene Creed, is not all that Anglicans need, by their
own confession. We do then still think, in spite of the
exultation of the High- Church organs, that the Exeter
Synod, however it may, for a time, buoy up unthinking
minds with a fond and unreal delusion, will be found, ere
long, to have aflforded but a fresh demonstration of the
utter impotency of " Anglo- Catholicism/'

But it is time to hasten towards our conclusion. When will
his Lordship of Exeter learn that it is not by individual,
but by united action, that an Episcopate can show itself
actuated and inspired by the spirit of unity and truth ?
And when will his eyes be opened to see that the life of
the Church consists, not in the dead records of the past,
or in re-affirming truths to which centuries upon cen-
turies have set their seal ; but in authoritatively defining
them, and enforcing them by an united, living, speaking
voice, and in developing them onwards into their legiti-
mate consequences ? Thus, when the Church met together
at Nicaea to refute the heresy of Arius, she did not content
herself with re-asserting the ancient truth, " I believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God ;" but under the guidance
of God the Holy Ghost, she drew up an expanded Creed,
containing a full statement of the Catholic doctrine, and
imposed it on all her members, while at the same time,
she formally anathematized the Arian '* view/' But no
" National *' Church, no mere human *^ Establishment,'*
no body short of the one Church of the living God, can do
so now. It is not very long since the Anglican Episcopate
found out that, after long and repeated deliberation, they
could not even draw up an united statement of what is,
and has been, the Anglican doctrine, as to the effects of
Infant Baptism. This failure, we say, stands on record
against them as a body. How much less then can they
venture, collectively or individually, to determine what is
henceforth to be received and believed as necessary truth,
and to stamp it with the mark of their " Church's"
authority ? Why the very attempt to do so must needs
be a failure, or if not, we have only one more observa-
tion to offer, and we have done. In summoning his
*' Synod," the Bishop of Exeter has pushed his Angli-
canism to its furthest lengths. Pie has, by so doing, laid

1 85 1 .] Tlie Synod of Exeter. 49

bare the original principle on which it is based. He
has saved ^ us the trouble of analysis. Just as mere
Protestantism, when its principles are carried out,
makes every individual to be Pope, Church, and all
in himself, and Christendom to consist of the apfgregate of
these individual popes ; in like manner Anglo-Catholicism,
which is but a Protestant substratum with an Episco-
pal supers truction, leads its consistent followers to the
conclusion, that *^ every Diocese,^ ^ (or in other words,
every Bishop with his clergy and laity,) "is in itself a
whole ;** in fact, constitutes a complete Christian Church.*
In the one case the individual Christian, and in the other
the individual Bishop, becomes to himself the ultimate
appeal in all matters connected with the faith. Now,
perfectly agreeing as we do with his Lordship, that '* a
National Church is only an adventitious and accidental

* These pages were already written wlien we chanced to see Mr.
Keble*8 •* Pastoral Letter " to his parishioners at Ilurslej, ou
occasion of the proposed Synod. We thank him for having so
literally confirmed the estimate which we have here formed of
Anglicanism when pushed on into its consequences. On page
14 he writes thus : ** Such an assembly, such a Synod, has now

been called by the Bishop of ^ Church of Exeter,'* Again, **I

requested your prayers for our brethren in the Church or Diocese of
Exeter,*^ And again he calls this Diocese ** one which is not
the least of the Churches of God in this island.*' (^he italics
are our own.) Surely this bears us out in all that we have
said. " Habes confiteutem reum." Henceforth, as Protes-
tantism takes for its motto, '*Quot capita, tot studia/' so let
Anglo-Catholicism write upon its banners, "Quot Episcopi, tot
Ecclesiae.*' Are not ** Anglo-Catholics," by their own confession,
as far from acknowledging *'one Catholic Church," as Mr. Gorham
is from admitting " one Baptism V* We have not time further to
enter upon Mr. Keblc*s letter as a whole ; so we will content our-
selves by merely reminding him, that at least nine tenths of Chris-
tendom agree in denying his assertion that " our " (i. e. Anglican)
Bishops are Bishops, tfiere is no doubt of that; and the Priests
ordained by them are Priests.** If the Anglican Church wishes to
make out its title to an Apostolic Mission, it must call other witnesses
to prove its claim, besides its own members. This is but fair. And
considering that the Diocese of Exeter is not tlie Church of Eng-
land, any more than the Anglican Establishment is the Church
Catholic, we do not see how it is such ** a great and good thing for
us (Anglicans,) and our children," to have *' the true doctrine and
fiaith of the Nicene Creed concerning Holy Baptism," re-affirmed

VOL. XXXI.— No. LXI. 4

50 Tli€ Sj^nod of Exeter, [Sept

ordinance/' and that to the unity of the Church *' it is
not necessary that there should be a National Church *' at
all : we join issue with him as to the consequences of his
other position — the integrity of each particular Diocesan
Church. How will he reconcile this position with the
words of St. Cyprian, *' The Episcopate is one, of which
a part is held by each without division of the whole?*'
His Lordship will readily admit that, where the ultimate
appeal lies to the conscience of each individual, private
judgment is supreme, and endless dissensions must ensue.
He will confess that on this theory, there must be almost
as many Creeds as individuals, y quot capita tot studia ;"
and he will condemn the principle as directly militating
against the divine doctrine of the unity of the Church; in
fact, as being the doctrine of none but the sect of the
Independents. But what will his Lordship answer, when
we arraign him in turn, and say to him, " mutato nomine
de te fabula narratur? What answer will he give us
when we tell him that Anglo- Catholic as he professes to
call himself, he is, after all, a Protestant, yes, and even
an Independent in principle ? His Lordship and his
admirers will stare at this bold assertion, but we are
prepared to make it good against him and them. For
let us view his theory in its consequences: first, then, as
Anglican Bishops confessedly do not all speak the same
thing, the Creed of each Diocese will be diflerent ; at all
events, it 'need not be the same: for as the ultimate
appeal in the Diocese of Exeter lies in the Bishop of
Exeter, and in the Diocese of Worcester (for instance,)

bj the Sjnod of Exeter. Is it logical to argue from the part to the
whole, from the particular instance to the general principle ?
Grant that one twentj-eighth section of the Anglican Establish-
ment holds Catholic opinions upon one Article of the Creed: are we
to infer that, therefore, the titkole English Church holds Catholic
doctrines upon all the Articles of the Creed — in other words is
Catholic? Can one imagine a more transparent fallacj? Whj» what
will Mr. Keble say to this ? ** One twentjeighth part of the English
Church denies the Regeneration of Infants in Baptism ; therefore
the whole English Church denies the whole Creed ?" Every one ia
the latter case can see the absurdity of such an argument, as an
argument^ in point of conclusiveness and form, — even though he
may bo disposed, as we are, to believe the conclusion not far from
the truth. And does not the former argument fall with it 1

1 85 l.l The Synod of Exeter. 5 1

in the Bishop of Worcester, and as each Bishop is sup-
posed to be capable of defining truth for his Diocese,
then it follows of necessity, that what is true in Exeter
need not be true, nay, may be false, in Worcester ; and
that so the faith niust depend upon geographical divisions.
Hence, too, as a second consequence, while an individual
may incur the sin of heresy, a 13 is hop never can ; for
being complete in itself, the Diocese has its own faith,
and that must depend on the opinions of its own diocesan.
But we fancy that Nestorius was both a Bishop and a
heretic. And a third consequence will be found to be
that the same injj[ividual who is orthodox in one Diocese
will be a heretic in another; and that the peer or mem-
ber of Parliament, who for six months of the year holds
the truth in London, may be a heretic during the other
six at his country seat. We repeat, that this is identical
in principle with the views of Independents, and that
these are the consequences with which every system is
fairly chargeable when it once gives up the great Catholic
verity of one infallible centre of unity, with which it is
necessary for every particular Church to be in communion :
unless, perhaps, that system likes, at the same time, to
give up the idea of any divine authority in its Episcopate,
and to fall back upon the theory of Hobbes, that all
spiritual jurisdiction flows from the secular power. In the
sixteenth century, the two provinces of York and Canter-
bury determined that it was no longer necessary for them
to communicate with the see of Rome ; that it was lawful
for them to act independently of the whole Church, and
(as they professed,) to reform themselves apart from all
the other Dioceses of the Christian world. And now that
three centuries have passed away, mark the result : the
English Church, as an undutiful child, has met with its
own reward. It threw ofiF the parental sway of Rome to
follow its own wayward will, and it seems now likely to
reap the fruits of its ancient sin. For on what principle
can she rise up in judgment on the Diocese of Exeter,
if it shall choose to retire within itself, to reform what
it considers to be existing abuses in the parent Establish-
ment, as she herself " reformed " the so-called abuses of
the Church of God three centuries ago, and finally
'* to renounce all further connection with a body, which,
in its own opinion, has become heretical?'* Thus, what-
ever Anglicans may say, there is not a single argument

52 Tlie Synod of Exeter. [Sept

on which the English Reformation can" be defended,
which will not equaUy defend the Bishop and Diocese of
Exeter, in erecting itself (if it can effect its end,) into a
separate body aloof from the rest of the Establishment ;
and there is no single argument which the English
Church, as a body, can adduce in condemnation of the
schismatical conduct of Dr. Philpotts, which will not
equally pronounce sentence upon the principles and prac-
tice of the leaders of that unhappy schism which men
call the English Reformation. Nay, we see not what can
prevent each Archdeacon in his Archdeaconry, and each
Rural Dean in his Deanery, through the length and
breadth of Devon and Cornwall, from pressing on to its
legitimate conclusion the suicidal principle which their
own Diocesan has set forth ; and perhaps, we may live to
see the day when every separate parish in his Lordship's
Diocese will rise and proclaim the self-same sentiments
on its own account; when the Rector and Church-
wardens, after their parish feast, will sit in judgment on
their Bishop, pronounce him " a fautor of heretical
tenets,' ' declare the integrity of every parish in itself^
affirm their own Catholicity, and disown all further coni-
munion with their excommunicated neighbours. If this
should never come to pass, the English Church will only
have to thank, under God, the illogical minds of English-
men in general, and of her own members in particular:
and if, in God's Providence, such a day should dawn upon
them, the nation will be keen-sighted enough to lay the
blame and scandal at the doors of Henry Philpotts,
sometime Lord Bishop of Exeter.

1851.] Miscellany of the Celtic Society. 53

Art. III. — Miscellany of the Celtic Society: the Genealogy of the Oorca-
laidhe; Poem cm the Battle of Doun, by Gilla Brighde Mae Conmkide;
Doticra*s Tracts; several Foem^, Pedigrees, Extracts, Edited bjr
John 0*Donovan, Esq., L. L. D., M. R. I. A. Dublin : Printed
for the Celtic Society, 1849.

HAVING, in two of our former numbers, explained
the objects of the Celtic Society, and recommended
it to the support of our readers, we deem it unnecessary in
introducing to notice its third publication, to make any pro-
fession of the deep interest which we feel in its success. From
the list of subscribers published in this volume, it appears
that the four Archbishops, and more than half of the
Bishops of Ireland, together with a large number of the
most respectable priests, are subscribers ; but it^ is to be
regretted, that, with a few very cheering exceptions, the
English supporters of similar literary societies, seem not to
think the archaeological researches of the Celtic Societ\", at
least, entitled to their patronage. Yet there is nothing in
the constitution or objects of the society to repel any sup-
porter who wishes to see Irish history, such as it is, rescued
from the hands of ignorant or narrow minded compilers.
That is its sole end and aim — to supply the rough material
to the historian, with notes and illustrations, free alike
from the high flown exaggerations of national vanity and
the bigotted or contemptuous misrepresentations of domes-
tic or foreign revilers. A project so reasonable deserves
the support of every historical student, who knows that
Ireland, fallen though she be now, once had a great name
among the Christian nations of Europe, and that even
after all the unprecedented afflictions of the last few years,
she still is a most important member of the British
Empire.

It is useless to remind the reader of the value of an
historiccal miscellany, a volume containing a number of
detached and independent pieces, often not very important
in themselves, but when collated with others, not less
suggestive to the historian, than a fossil is to the geologist.
Following the example of other associations, the Celtic
Society resolved to collect the literary fragments scattered

64 Miscellany of the Celtic Society. [Sept.

through the ponderous pages of such Irish encyclopedias
as the Books of Leacau and Ballymote; and in this
volume we have a very favourable specimen which may
please by its variety, many, who in those daj^s of light
learning, would willingly dispense with unity in an archaeo-
logical theme.

The first tract in this miscellany is entitled '^ the Gene-
alogy of the Corca Laidhe/^ a tribe descended according
to bardic accounts, from Ith, one of the Spanish progeni-
tors of the Irish people. 1th was paternal uncle of Milesius,
whose three sons, Eremon, Eber, and Ir, were the reputed
founders of the Milesian nobility in three provinces of the
island, and a considerable pait of the fourth. The descen-
dants of Ith being, we are told, restricted to part of South
Munster.

That the reader may form some notion of the bearing of
the tract, it may be necessary to state very briefly the
bardic story of Pagan Ireland, as it has been digested by
O'Flaherty, the most patient and learned of all Irish
seanachies.

The Irish, according to their own accoimt, were not all
of the same race, several colonies having successively
invaded, and for a time held possession of the whole, or
part of the island. To the primeval colonies of Parthola-
nus and Nemethus, which went over not long after the
deluge, we may apply the classic lines cited by O'Flaherty
himself.

Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbras
Porque domos Ditis yacuas et iuauia rega.

These colonies are not honoured by a single notice from
some bards of high authority ; and by a rather suspicious
coincidence, Partholanus, who landed a. m. 1970, has
four sons, Er, Orba, Fergna, and Farran, the very heroes
who figure more than a thousand years later, as the sons of
the Milesian patriarah, Eber. The only circumstance
worth attending to in the fable of these primitive colonies,
is that according to the general opinion, they were of the
same race as those that succeeded them, and all, it is said,
spoke the same language.

The Firbolgs, under the leadership of Slainghe, invaded
Ireland a. m. 2^>57, and divided it into five provinces,
Leinster, Ulster, Connaught, North Munster, South
Munster. They consisted of three tribes, called Firbolg

1851.] Miscellany of the Celtic Sociely. 55

proper. Fir Gailian, Fir Domhain. They came, we are
told, from Great Britain. After a dynasty of nine kings,
whose reigns lasted ahout eighty years, they were subdued
by the Tuatha Dea Danann, but continued for many cen-
turies to hold some territory, especially in Connaught and
Leinster. So late as last century, O 'Flaherty could
name, he says, families then existing, descended from the
Firbolgs.

The Tuatha Dea Danann, the next invaders, a. m. 2737,
came, we are told, from North Britain, after many peregri-
nations on the continent, too numerous to be particularized.
Of the Danann, it is to be observed, that they disappear
almost totally from bardic story, immediately after their
subjection by the Milesians, a. m. 2935. No genealogies
are traced to them, but the fame of their heroes, their
learning and arts, the great fortresses they built, and the
number of woods they felled, and plains they fertilized, are
to this day a proverb in Ireland. Some traditions say that
they spoke the Teutonic language.

The bardic story of the Milesian family is briefly
told. They came from Spain, and having conquered
the Tuatha Dea Danann, partitioned the island between
them. Ir had Ulster; Eiber, North Munster; Ith,
South Munster; but the bards are at a loss to decide
what portion remained for Eremon, some assigning the
north, others the south, others, more probably, Lein-
ster and Connaught. What is historically certain is,
that in the 3rd or 4th century of our era, clans call-
ing themselves, then, or subsequently descendants of Ir,
Eber, Ith, and Eremon, did occupy the parts of the
island, assigned to them in this partition. From the four
patriarchs sprung a line of kings, who ruled Ireland as
monarchs, or ardrigh, for more than a thousand years
before the Christian era; but about that period, the ple-
beian Irish, gathering spirit after a slavery of 40 genera-
tions, rose against their Milesian masters, and not having
the dread of law before their eyes, did treasonably cut off
nearly the whole of the royal race, and place one of their
own plebeian blood on the throne. The seasons, however,
conspired against the rebels ; the pastures gave no grass,
and of course, the cows no milk ; the hazel trees no nuts,
or the red earth no grain ; so the repentant rebels were
compelled to send a suppliant embassy to the few remain-
iiig scions of the royal stock, begging them graciously to

66 Miscellany of the CeUic Society. [Sept*

return, and allow the kingdom once more to flourish under
their shade. They did return, and precisely about this
period of the restoration of the Irish monarchy, the island
IS again divided into the same five provinces, established
more than 1500 years ago by the Firbolgs. After this res-
toration of the royal line, the pentarchy subsisted until the
reign of Tuathal the Welcome, a. d. 130-160, who, to con-
solidate his throne after a second rebellion of the plebei^s,
founded for himself the ancient province of Meath, by
cutting off a portion of each of the five provinces, which for-
merly met at Uisneach hill, in Westmeath. Hitherto,
members of the four Milesian lines had shared the royal
succession, but from this period it gradually became re-
stricted to the Eiremonians ; and from the reign of Nial of
the Nine hostages, a. d. 400, to that of Brian Boroimbe
exclusive, none but the Hy Niall, i. e. Eiremonians, swayed
the royal sceptre. Such are the chief outlines of the
elaborate superstructure, compiled with more than the
patience of a Dutch Bollandist by O'Flaherty, from all the
accessible bards and annalists of his day.

The fable has its episodes. From time to time, a peo-
ple, powerful by sea, descend on the Irish coasts, and
endeavour to establish themselves in the estuaries, espe-
cially in the north. As " Fomoire,*' the name by which
they are known, literally signifies " seafaring,*' it supplies
no grounds for conjecturing the quarter whence they came.
The general tendency of the references to them, is decided-
ly favourable to their northern origin ; and more than once
it is expressly asserted, that they came from Finland.
Keating, it is true, states that they were sons of Cham,
and came from Africa, which appears to favour the opinion
so popular at the close of the last century, that the Irish
coasts were, in ancient days, colonized by Phoenicians. If so,
it does not rest on authority as certain as the trading set-
tlements of the same people, in the south of Britain, though
it can be proved on foreign testimony, that Ireland M'as not
unknown to the Carthaginians, and better known by mer-
chants generally, than Britain, at least in the days of
Tacitus. Neither the Irish language, however, nor cus-
toms, nor any relics of ancient civilization, place the inter-
course of the Tyrian sea-rovers with Ireland, beyond the
reach of very reasonable doubts. Another feature which
diversifies the monotonous routine of bardic story, is a
record of three distinct emigrations from Ireland to Alba,

1851.] Miscellany of the Celtic Society t 57

i. e. modern Scotland ; first of the Picts, who went over in
the days of Heremon, by whom they were driven out;
second, of the Dailraidians, in the 3rd century of the chris-
tian era, to whom the royal line, and many nobles of Scot-
land traced their origin ; and third, of the sons of MacErc,
who passed over about the time of St. Patrick.

A simple enumeration of the various systems propounded
by Innes, Pinkerton, Moore, and many others on this pre-
historic part of Irish story, would be a very laborious, and
by no means interesting task, both because like most similar
themes, it is involved in almost hopeless obscurity, and still
more from a defect of dignity and variety in the theme
itself, the story of every succeeding age and tribe being
nearly the same as its predecessor.

One thing, however, must forcibly strike the most heed-
less investigator, namely, that the historians of the 17th
century, Keating and the Four Masters, had abetter know-
ledge of Irish affairs before the christian era, than the most
respectable of ancient Irish annalists. An abbot of the pa-
rent monastery of Clonmacnoise, compiled before the close
of thellth century, a volume of annals, which clearly prove,
even in their mutilated shape, that he must have had the
command of an extensive classical library, and that he
knew well how to use his materials. Now if there was one
place in Ireland where it might be expected the most copi-
ous and authentic collection of Irish history was deposited,
that place was certainly Clonmacnoise.^ To this day it
presents, even in its ruins, a more imposing monunient of

Jure Irish civilization, than any other place in the island,
t was the burial place of several kings from all the pro-
vinces ; a favourite resort of pilgrims, and though it did not
always escape, its central and solitary position on the
banks of the Shannon, nearly encompassed by melancholy
bogs, enabled it to enjoy comparative security. Surely the
abbot of this house could not be ignorant of the historjr of
bis country, and would not willingly consign it to oblivion.
Yet the very first touch of his pen banishes to the realms
of fable all that the bards had dreamed of Milesian story,
antecedent to the year before Christ 300, and so far from
attempting to give a consecutive Irish history after that
period, he merely records a naked catalogue of the kings
of Ulster, who reigned in the palace of Emania, near
Armagh. Of the kings of Tarah, i.e. Ireland, he men-
tions not one before Labraid Loingseach, who reigned, he

58 Miscellany of the Cellic Society. [Sept.

says, about 70 years before Christ, and was the founder of
a dynasty of 30 Leinster kings of Ireland. Then come the
names of four kings in succession, Duach Daltadegha,
Eochaid Airemh, Eochaidh Feidloch, and Conaire Mor.
Of the three former he gives only the names, but in the
reign of Conaire, (contemporary with the birth of Christ,)
the island was divided into five provinces. From Conaire
to Tuathal the Welcome, a. d. 160, he records the names of
five kings of Tarah, and nothing more, except that the imme-
diate successor of Conaire, Lugard Reonderg, a.d. 79, was
the first of a dynasty of kings of the northern half of the
island, commonly called Leath Cuin. Thus Tigemach*»
history of Ireland, before the year a. d. 160, may be com-
pressed into these lines, viz., a catalogue of Ulster kings ;
the names of eleven kings of Tarah ; the partition of the
island into five provinces, about the commencement of the
christian era, and the establishment of two dynasties of
kings, one commencing about seventy years before, the
other fifty or sixty years after the birth of Christ.

So meagre a skeleton of Irish antiquities was not agree-
able to those who loved the pompous and full blown fables
of the bards. Tigemach*s authority should be set aside by
some means or other. He did not intend, it was said, to
give a full history, but merely a few notices of the most

Erominent facts. But his history is the best interpreter of
is intentions. If he had known a correct catalogue of
kings of Ireland, why not give them, rather than the
catalogue of provincial kings of Ulster ? Why take the
building of the provincial fort of Ulster, about 300
years before the christian era, as the glimmering dawn
of Irish tradition, rather than some ^reat name in the
bardic scenes of monarchs of the whole island? Whoever
takes the trouble of reading the first part of his annals,
will be at no loss to discover the reason. Commencing
with the reign of Ptolemy, a. c, he gives copious and cor-
rect records of Grecian, Roman, Jewish, and Christian
events for the next 500 years; his notices of Ireland
during that whole period, not fiUing one page in a hun-
dred, but as he advances nearer to the date of Christianity
in Ireland, and after that date, his Irish facts begin gradu-
ally to occupy a larger space, proving to demonstration
thereby, one should think, that ,if he said little of his
country in earlier times, it was not because he disdained

1851.] Miscellany of the Celtic Society. 69

to entwine her humble story with those of great nations,
but truly because he had nothing certain to say.

All the researches of Irish literary societies tend to con-
firm the authority of Tigernach, and among them this last
publication of the Celtic Society. Nay, the bards them-
selves rightly interpreted by a collation of their discordant
rhapsodies, will be found to agree with him, that except
perhaps a series of Ulster kings for a few centuries, there
18 nothing approaching to certainty in Irish story before
the Christian sera. Taking in the first place the genealo-
gists, we shall find that the stems of all the known tribes
of the JMilesian family flourished in comparatively recent
periods. The Eiremonians were divided into three princi-
pal branches : the Leinster, the Northern (Leath Cuin),
and the Deogadh or Ernaan branch. The Leinster were
descended from Labraid Loinseach, a. d. 70 (cir); the
Deogadh, from Deag, about the same period ; and the
Northern from Lugaidh Reonderg, a. d. 74; Labraid and
Lugaidh, being accordin or to Tigernach, founders of two
dynasties of kings. All the known descendants of Ir,
traced their descent from Ruadhri, king of Ulster,
about the middle of the first century before Christ. The
genealogical stem of the Ithians and Eiberians, branches
at a much more recent period, all the former being des-
cended from Lughaid Maccon, a. d. 240, and all the latter
from Olill Olum, A. D. 237. Thus of all the Milesian
tribes who possessed any territory in historic times, the
origin is not traced farther back than to about half a cen-
tury before the christian sera. It is true a long chain of
bardic genealogies connects Labraid Loinseach, and Lug-
aidh Reonderg and Ruadhi, and Deag, and Lugh.aid
Maccon, and Olill Olum, with the Milesian patriarchs,
Eiremon, Eber, Ith, and Ir — but all these genealogies
bear, according to Charles 0* Conor, evident marks of
bardic forgery. It appears, therefore, that whatever truth
may be contained in the genealogical tables, they would
not carry back the probable dawn of Irish history to a
period more remote tnan that in which Tigernach records
the division of the island into five provinces, about the
commencement of the Christian sera.

Evidences to the same efiect may be collected from
another species of bardic literature, which flourished with
unusual exuberance in ancient times. The history of all
famous localities was regularly chronicled ; every mound.

60 Miscellany of tlie Celtic Society. [Sept.

and rath, and cavern was associated with the name of some
hero or clan. The cemeteries of the Pagan kings are
described in some of the oldest Irish mannscripts extant,
and it may easily be supposed that more credit can ^ be
given to such documents, which had as it were their lasting
interpreters and vouchers in the monuments themselves,
than to a branchless line of genealogical names. Now in
these sepulchral records, the most ancient name occurring
in the Eiremonian line, is the same Labraid Loinseach,
who was buried at Cruachan in Connaught: the first
Eiremonian of Leath Cuin, buried on the banks of the
Boyne, was a son of Lugaidh Reonderg ; and the burial
place of the Deogadh or Ernaan Erienionians, took its
name from Deag or Erna. Had there been Eiremonian
kings before these, is it probable that the topographical
gossip in which the Irish literati loved so dearly, would
not have named the cemetery where they were mterred?
The hero who gave his name (Dergthene) to the Eiberians
is only a few generations anterior to their common parent,
Olill Olura. The king of Ulster alone appears to acquire
an antiquity from the history of the cemeteries, greater
than that of their common genealogical stock Ruadbri,
for it is said that the famous Ollamh Fodhla, his progeni-
tor, had with his successors been buried at Tailton (Tell-
town), in the county Meath. And this is not the only
reason for believing that the descendants of Ir were the
most ancient and firmly established race in the island.

To confirm still more Tigernach's date of the origin of
the Irish patriarchal government, the reader may calculate
the probable consequences of Caesar's Gallic wars, and his
invasion of Britain on the fate of Ireland. The Irish
bards unanimously state that Labraid Luinsheach landed
in Ireland at the head of a Gallic host, and succeeded in
making himself master of the plains of Leinster and
Connaught. The date assigned by Tigernach to this
Labraid, would agree perfectly with the emigration of the
BelgSB from Gaul to Britain, some years before CjBsar's
invasion (nostra memoria). . The rebellion of the plebeians
of bardic story, occurring too at the same period, when
stripped of its bardic dress, intimates clearly that there
must have been times of disorder and revolution, such as
would be caused by the irruption of foreign invaders. The
division of the island was not, therefore, the voluntary act
of a king, as the bards represent it, but rather the conse-

1851.] Miscellany of (he Celtic Society. 61

quence of the murder of a kin^, Conaire Mor, as Tiger-
uach intimates, and the dissolution by invaders of whatever
form of nominal government may have existed previously
in the island. From all that has been said, it may be
fairly inferred that if there be any truth in the primitive
history of Pagan Ireland, it is contained in Tigernach :
all that is known tends to substantiate his first statements:
and judging from the past, all that now can be brought to
light by Irish archaeologists, will not add one fact to the
few chronicled by him, before the day of Tuathal the
Welcome, a, d. 160.

In any enquiry into the fabulous history of Ireland, the
bards would have deemed it a fundamental heresy to ques-
tion the near relationship of the Milesian patriarchs,
Erenion, Eber, Ir, and Ith. The three former were sons
of Milesius, Ith*s brother. The same system of making
the parents of nations, blood-relations was also extended by
the bards to foreigners, as appears clearly by the following
passage in the Irish edition of Nennius, lately published
by the Irish Archaeological society. '* Now after the
deluge the world was divided into three parts, between the
three sons of Noah, viz. Europe, Africa, and Asia. Sem
was in Asia; Cam, in Africa ; Japeth, in Europe. The
first man of the race of Japeth that came into Europe in
the beginning, was Alanius, with his three sons, viz.
Isacon, Gothus or Armion, and Negua. Isacon had four
sons, Francus, Romaiius, Britus, Albanus. Now Armion
had five sons, Gotas, Uilegotas, Cebetus, Burgundus,
Longobardus. Negua had three sons, Vandalus, Saxo,
Boarus. It is from Saxo that the Saxons are descended,
but it is from Britus that the Britons come.'* p. 33. Inter-
preting the story of the Milesian brothers by the principle
on which this family classification is made, we infer that
the only bond of brotherhood between them was probably
their existence in the same country, and perhaps a simi-
larity in an identity of language and institutions. The
story of their family connection is not only improbable,
but they were not even contemporaries if we may judge
from the territories assigned to each race in the earliest
ages. There are many probable traditional evidences all
tending to prove that the race of Ir had long preceded the
Eiremonians, and possessed the greater part, if not the
whole of the island. It is admitted that the Irians reigned
sole masters of Ulster until about the time of Lughaidh

62 Miscellany of the Celtic Soctetg,, [Sept.

Reonderg. In the other provinces they also possessed large
tracts of bog and mountain territory, coextensive in very
many instances, with the territories into which the Irish
were driven by the Anglo-Norman invaders in the twelfth
century. There was an old tradition that the island had
once been equally divided between two Irian princes, aiid
to this day the remains of two forts, one on the extreme
northern, the other on the southern shore, are called by
their names. The renowned 011am Fodlila himself was
an Irian, and progenitor of that race of Ulster kings to
whom Tigernach gives so high an antiquity. Even the
greatest traditional glories of old Tarah itself are associated
with the names of Ollamh and of his Irian successors, and
their cemetery Telltown was not more than half a dozen
miles from that royal palace. But the circumstance which
more than any other would mark out the Irians as a distinct
race, is the fact, that many of the tribes are expressly
called Cniithnians or Picts, by some of the most ancient
authorities. From all these converging probabilities, it is
not, perhaps, rash to infer, that Tigernach records the
succession of Irian or Ulster kings, because theirs was the
only race long established in the island, and enjoying, even
when driven to Ulster by invasion, a considerable remnant
of their former power, which never ceased to be respectable
until the destruction of the palace of Eamania, near
Armagh, a. d. 332, by the encroaching and then dominant
race of the Eiremonians. It is a singular tradition, too,
that the Irians ceased to be buried in their ancient ceme-
tery at Telltown, about the very period which marks,
according to Tigernach, the rise of the Leinster and Leath
Cuin branches of the Eiremonians.

While so many circumstances establish the antiquity of
the Irian race, the comparatively recent origin of the
Eiremonians is proved by evidence that may be considered
strictly historical, inasmuch as their permanent conquests
in Ulster, Connaught, and parts of Leinster and Munster
date no further back than the third and fourth centuries of
our sera. It will be seen that there are strong reasons for
doubting whether the Deagadhs or Ersnaans were really
Eiremonians. Certain it is that authorities so old as the
ninth century, denied that they were of that race. The
whole territory of the Eiremonians would in that case have
been restricted during the first and second century, to
parts of Leinster, of Meath, aud of the adjoining level

1S51.^ Miscellany qftfie Celtic Society. 6a

and fertile plains of Connaught— that is, the territories
which tradition assigns to Labraid Loingseach and Lug-
hardh Reonderg, the founders of the two chief Eiremoniaa
lines. From the time that Tuathal the Welcome, a. d.
130 (who was fourth in descent from Lughaidh Reonderff),
appropriated the provinces of Meath to himself, tne
gradual progress of his descendants to other conquests can
be distinctly traced. His ^andchildren acquired, we are
told, large territories in Waterford, about the middle of
the third century, and at the same time Wexford and
Carlow fell under the dominion of the same race. Seventy
years later, the entire province of Conuaught was subju-
gated by Murdoch, one of Tuathal's descenrlants, and
before the commencement of the fifth century, Ulster, with
the exception of parts of Down and Antrim (still held by
the Irians), had passed under Eiremonian sway. Thus in
the course of two centuries preceding the advent of St.
Patrick, three-fourths of the island had been conquered by
Eiremonians, who were to all intents and purposes, the
Elizabethans, Cromwellians, and Williamites of the day.
To convince himself of this gradual and comparatively
modem establishment of the Eiremonian power, the reader
need not have recourse to recondite manuscripts. Its
history may be collected easily from the publications of the
• Celtic and Archaeological societies, and from the works of
O'Flaherty, and the Four Masters themselves. This fact
would explain the distinction which Sk Patrick evidently
makes in his writings between a dominant race which he
calls Scotti, and the mass of the inhabitants, whom he calls
Iberiones, or Iberionaces. The Eiremonians were, accord-
ing to all appearances, the Scotti, though that name was
manifestly adopted from foreigners, and never generally
adopted by any class of the Irish themselves. Its ety-
mology remains still a mystery. It was given by the
Komans to thase sea-rovers from Ireland, whose depreda-
tions were felt in the western provinces in the decline of
the empire. It would not be difficult to prove from Irish
documents, that those conquering Eiremonians were no
other than the Belgse or Firbilgs of Irish tradition, who
settled in Ireland during the course of the first century
before Christ, but the details of that proof must be deferred
until we have some publication illustrating the traditional
history of the Eiberian race, which, like the Eiremonians,
was also very probably of Belgic origin.

64 Miscellany of the Celtic Society. [Sept.

The treatise at the head of this article, though professing
to give the history of the Ithiaii branch of the Milesian
family, throws but little light on the traditional history of
ancient Ireland. 0 'Flaherty complains that there was a
hiatus of twenty-three generations in the genealogy of the
Ithians from Lughaid Maccon, a. d. 250, to Ith ; and Mr.
O'Donovan makes the hiatus nearly double that number.
The traditional story of the Ithian possessions is, that in
the first partition after the Milesian conquest, the Ithians
received as their share, that part of Munster which lies
west of the line from Cork to Xiimerick, the district east
of that line being the property of the Eiberians. The
sovereignty of the whole province was enjoyed alternately
by the two clans, until about the middle of the first century
before Christ (the date of Labraid Loingseach), when the
Ernaan or Deagadh clan of the Eiremonians (so called)
invaded Munster, and held both Ithians and Eiberians in
subjection for more than two centuries. The Ithians it is
said never recovered their former power, but the Eiberians
under their patriarch Olill Olim, a. d. 240, not only
regained their former territories, but became masters of
nearly the whole province of Munster. This story, so far
as it assigns the south-west of Ireland as the home of the
Ithians, may be received with some credit, because the
earliest dawn of authentic history shows them established
in thft •south-west of the County of Cork, and their des-
cendants were numerous and wealthy in the present
diocese of Ross, do^yn to the Cromwellian confiscation.
But that in ancient times they were confined to the south-
west of Munster, may be very fairlj^ questioned, for it may
be asked, how are we to account, in that supposition, for
the location of several Ithian tribes in the other provinces ?
How came the Ithian Calraidhe to be settled in the far
Tyrawley, and the Ithian Laighis on the opposite shores of
the Irish sea ; the Ithian Dalmescorb on the western slopes
of the Wicklow mountain, and the Ithian O'Flym in the
bogs of Crossmolina; why are the Coscraidhe Ithians
found in the glens of western Waterford, and other Ithian
tribes in Leitrim, Longford, Westmeath, Sligo, Roscom-
mon, and Eili O'Carrol in the King's County and Tippe-
rary ? The diffusion of these tribes is chronicled, but not
accounted for in the Celtic Miscellany, nor is it easy to
guess what could have driven them from their own sunny
regions in the south, to the least inviting parts of other

1851.] Miscellany of the Celtic Society. 65

provinces, unless we suppose that they had not been origi-
nally confined to south Munster, but that at some remote
period they had possessed the rich central plains of the
island, and were driven thence by new invaders to
the bogs and mountains, until after the lapse of ages the
largest remnants of them were shut up within the narrow
limits of the diocese of Ross, just as the once wide-ruling
Irians were confined by the same causes to a small tract
in the opposite corner of Ireland. It is absurd to imagine
that these distant settlements could have been made by
Ithian conquerors issuing from the south, because con-
querors usually do not select as their portion the worst
parts of the conquered territory : and it is not consistent
with genealogical tables to suppose that the diffusion of
the Ithians was caused by forced emigration, after the
conquest of Munster in the third century, by the Eiberians,
because the reputed parents of those scattered tribes lived
some generations before the Eiberian conquerors. The
principle on which these speculations are founded,'is attested
Dy the history of many countries, namely, that the con-
quered retreated before the invaders to the remote and less
accessible parts of the country. The whole history^ of
Ireland, from the English invasion to the close of the reign
of James I., is a decisive illustration of that principle, and
it is well known that it is borne out to this day by the dif-
ferent strata of races in other countries, for instance, those
that line the northern sides of mount Atlas, Berbers,
Romans, Vandals, Greeks, Arabs, <fec.

The reader will please remember that the traditionary
declension of the ithian power dates from the Deagadh
invasion of Munster, a. c. 60 (circiter). About the same
time, north-eastern Ulster also received a colony of those
Deagadh, that is in other words, the Deagadh or Ernaans,
are driven north and south, at the very period in which
Labraid Loingseach was hewing out for nimself a settle-
ment in Leinster and Meath. Couaire Mor was of this
Deagadh race : and it was after his royal Dun, Bruigean
ua Derga at the foot of Dublin mountains, on the banks of
the Dodder, had been sacked, and himself slain, that the
island was partitioned into five parts, according to Tiger-
nach. The probable inference is that the Deagadh or
Ernaans preceded the Belgse, and were not Eiremonians.
There are other very strong reasons for believing that they
were Ithians. Maolmuiri, a high authority and very

VOL. XXXI.— No, LXI. 6

C6 Mhcellany of ilie Celtic Society. [Sept.

ancient (a. d. 850), traces the Ernai or Deagadh to Itb,
and gives them the most prominent place among the clan,
though in another place he appears to assign some of the
most distinguished Ernai to the Eiremonians. Again, the
ancient cemetery of the Ernai was in the heart of the ori-
ginal territory of the Ithians, and if the Ithians were not
buried there, they were the only considerable ancient race
whose cemetery is not pointed out. The royal fort of the
Ernaan Conaire Mor was called Bruigean ua Derga, i. e.
" the palace of the descendants of Derga/^ who are classed
by Maolmuiri in the Ithian family. • These, it must be
confessed, are by no means conclusive proofs of the iden-
tity of the Ithians and Deagadhs, nor is it likely from^ the
defects in the chain of Ithian genealogies and the manifest
contradictions in the parts extant, that the question can ever
be placed beyond conjecture. Certain it is however, that if
Maolmuiri be correct, the Ithians did include the Deag-
adh, and that they possessed before the descent of Labraid
Loingseach, the greater part of the South, and strong
settlements in the centre of Ireland. The genealogical
series of the Ithians, such as it is, consisting of twenty-
one generations from Lughaid Macon to Ith, would place
that patriarch so far back as about half a century before
Tigernach's date of the first Ulster king, a. c.^ 300,^ an
antiquity remote enough for any reasonable antiquarian,
and which, moreover, would agree very well with the hypo-
thesis, that the Ithians were a later colony than the Irians,
and drove them from the south and from the regal Taraii
itself, to the less inviting regions of Ulster.

To many of our readers, it will appear, no doubt, that even
Tigernach himself is to be received with caution, especially
as the use of letters among the Pagan Irish is not placed
beyond dispute. It should be remembered, however, that
the chief facts which he records are of so public a charac-
ter, that they could easily be preserved during one or two
centuries by oral tradition, and as there are strong reasons
for believing that Christianity had penetrated to Ireland
so early as the commencement of the fourth century, and
of course introduced letters, the few facts given by Tiger-
nach could be thus transmitted.

In the mean time, it is surprising, while Irish " origines"
arc discussed with so much zeal, that neither of our Irish
societies has yet pubhshed the provincial kings of the
country in Pagan and Christian times. There are, we are

1851.] Miscellany of the Celtic Society. 67

told, long histoi'ical poems on that subject, still extant,
and surely they should be the foundation as it were of the
entire superstructure. The happy idea of an exhaustive
puolication, like that on the Irish Picts, in the edition of
Wennius, published by the Irish Archaeological society,
ought also to be followed up, giving together all that bards
and historians have said of the diflFerent races and
dynasties.

The later history of the principal branch of the Ithians^,
who were confined to the south-west of the County Cork,
is given in considerable detail in the various documents
now for the first time published by the editor. They illus-
trate some of the well-known workings of Irish life
during the Middle Ages, and the miseries caused by war,
confiscation, and famine, during the last three hundred
years, down to the ever memorable year, 1847, inclusive.
At page 384, commences a careful record of all the notices
6f the O'Driscolls, the chief Ithian family, extracted from
the Four Masters, and other Irish authorities. It appears
that immediately after the English invasion, the Barrys
encroached on the eastern borders of the O'DrisSolls; the
O 'Sullivan s, who at the same time had been expelled from
the rich vales around Clonmel, moved westward, and de-
prived them of a portion of the barriers of Bear and
Bantry; the O'Donovon^s, the O'Collins's, and other
families, driven from Limerick by the same causes, seized
the northern part of the O'DriscoU territory, and finally
the MacCarthy compelled them to pay tribute for the com-
paratively small portion of territory left them by preced-
ing invaders.^ Still they continued to make a considerable
figure, especially by sea, their principal fort, Baltimore,
supplying inviting facilities for that purpose. The castle
had been erected by the English so early as the year 1215,
but like many other of the early conquests of the Strong-
bonians, it soon fell into the hands of the Irish '* enemies/'
and became a formidable Algiers on a small scale, for
interrupting and destroying the commerce of the king's
liege subjects, in the southern cities of Ireland. A statute
of Henry VI. to provide against these evils, forbids, under
pain of forfeiture of all their property, any merchants of
Cork, Kinsale, Waterford, Youghall, or Wexford, from
fishing in the bays of O'DriscoU of Baltimore, or bringing
either arms or victuals into his territory. If the annals
of all these towns had been preseiTcd, there would be

68 Miscellany of the Celtic Society. [Sept.

abundant materials * for compiling a naval history of the
O'DriscoUs, if we may judge from the records which tell
of their hostile relations with the city of Waterford. In
the year 1368, the degenerate English clan the Power^f
Waterford, aided by the gallies of the O'Driscolls, sailed
towards the city with the intention of plundering it. The
citizens, the English and merchant strangers, under the
command of the mayor of the city, the sheriff of the
county, and the master of the Knights of St. John, sailed
against the enemy, but suffered a terrible defeat, having
lost thirty-six of the most distinguished burghers, sixty of
the English and foreign merchants, and their commanders,
the mayor of the city and sheriff of the county. In 1413,
the good citizens of Waterford returned the compliment, but
in a manner that confirmed but too strongly the national
proverb of Saxon perfidy.

** Symon Wicken, Maior of the citie of Waterford, Roger Walsh,
and Thomas Saulter, Bajliifs, in the first year of his maioralitj*
with a band of men in armour, in a shipp of the forsaid citie, went
on Christmas eve towards Balintimore, and in night on Christmas
day at supper tyme, landed his men, and in good order came to the
gate of O'Driscoirs great house or cast ell within the said hayen,
and called to the porter, willing him to tell his lord, that the maire
of Waterford was come unto the haven with a shipp of wine, and
that he would gladly come in to see his lord. Upon notice thereof
given by the porter to O'Driscoll, the gate was set open, and the
porter presently taken by the maior and put aside, and so the maior
walked into the great hall, where 0*Driscoll and his kinsmen and
friends, sitting at boardes, made ready to supp, commanded
O'DriscoU and his friends not to move or feare, for he would not,
nor meant not to draw no men's blood of the same house, more
than to daunce and drink and so to departe. With that the said
maior toke up to daunce, O'Driscoll and his sonne, the prior of the
friary, O'DriscolFs three brethren, his uncle, his wife, and leaving
them in their daunce, tlie maior commanded every of his men to
hold fast the said powers, and so after singing a carroll came away,
bringing with them aboored the same shipp, the said 0*Driscoll and
his company, saying unto them tbey should go with him to Water-
ford to syng their carroll and make merry that Christmas, and
they being all aboorde made sayle presently and arrived at Water-
ford, St. Steven's, at night, where with great joy received tbey
were with lightes.** — From the Casen MSS. p. 97.

In the year 1461, another descent of the O'DriscoUs is
recorded. In company with their hereditary confederates

1851.] Miscellany of the Celtic Society. 69

the Powers, they mustered strongly at the now celebrated
bathing place, Tramore. But the mayor, at the head of
his full muster, rose and marched out to meet them, and
gained a complete victory at Bally macadam, having killed
160 of the enemy, and taken prisoners O'DriscoU, with
six of his sons, who had the mortification of seeing their
" western gallies^' towed in triumph to the city.

In the revenues of the O'DriscoU, it will be seen that
wine levied on foreign merchants, was a very respectable
item : but he was not always content with what fell to his
lawful share. In February, 1551, four Portuguese ships,
laden with Spanish wine, consigned to the Waterford mer-
chants, were dispersed by a tempest on the south-western
coasts, and one of them was driven into a bay near the
haven of Baltimore. The chieftain and his sons went on
board, and covenanted for three pipes of wine to conduct
the ship safe into the haven. *' When the gentry and
peers of those parts,'* saith our author, "had tasted the
wines, they forgot their safe conduct, and invited the mer-
chants to dinner in the castle, seized and clapped them in
irons, manned their Irish gallies and took the ship, and
distributed seventy-two tuns of the wine amonff their
neighbours/* The news had no sooner arrived at Water-
ford, than a small ship, well manned and equipped weighed
anchor, and on the following day was alongside the cap-
tured merchantman, unperceived by her captors, who had
barely time to escape at one side, while the brave Water-
fordians were ascending on the other. Satisfied with the
recovery of the ship and of twenty-five tons of the wine,
the victors fired a few indignant voUies at the great hall of
the O'DriscoU, as a foretaste of what he might expect
from the greater expedition then preparing in Waterford.

" On the 27th of the same month, the major fitted out a little
fleet, consisting of the ship lately retaken^ another large vessel and
the great galley of the city, well appointed with artillery, victuals,
and men, to the number of four hundred, and put them under the
command of Bailiff Woodlock, as chief captain, Tierce Dobbjn,
James Walsh, James Sherlock, Henry Walsh, and John Butler,
under Captains. On Wednesday the first of April, at night they
sailed, and arrived within the haven of Baltimore, and anchored
near the castle, which was guarded with men and artillery. They
fired at it all night, and at break of day, the ward fied, and the
Waterford men landed in good order on the island, and besieged the
strong fortress there; the marines entered the castle by the small

70 Miscellany of the Celtic Society. [§®P^'

port, and put up St. George's standard, and the armj all ontered
at the bridge gate, and kept it fivo days, which thej spent iu de-
stroying all the villages of the island, and also the bouse of the
Friars' Minors, near the castle, and the mill of the same. Tho
fortress being double warded by two strong piles or castles, with
walls and barbicans, tlie halls, offices, &c. &c., were totally ruined
to the ground, and were tumbled into the sea. There was found in
the island great store of malt, barley, and salt. There was taken
here Fineeu's chief galley of thirty oars, and above three or four
score pinances, of which about fifty were burned, and the great
galley carried to Waterford. Near to Inishircan was au Island
called Inchipite, where Fincen had his most pleasant seat» in a
castle adjoining to a hall with an orchard and grove, all which thejr
destroyed and razed to the earth, and from thence they entered into
another island and burnt all the villages of the same. Then land-
ing on the main, they burnt and destroyed Baltimore, and broko
down Tcigue O'Driscoll's goodly castle and bawn.'* — p. 95.

From the account of the revenues enjoyed by one of the
chief O'DriscoUs, it would appear that they were richer
than many chieftains who make a more prominent figure
in the Irish annals. An inquisition taken at RoscarbeiTy,
in 1609, before the protestant bishop of Cork, finds that
the 0'l)riscolls tenantry contained sixty-five ploughlands;
the chief was entitled to receive from strangers as well as
fi-om his own tenants, fourpence anchorage for every ship
or barque entering the haven of Baltimore ; he could buy
(by right of pre-emption) five per cent, below the market
price, any goods offered for sale in the said town or harbour,
or if he refused to buy, the seller should pay him a duty
of more than three per cent.; ho had four gallons out of
every butt of wine ; all the empty casks; and a reduction
of two-pence per gallon on all the wine purchased for the
use of his own hall. No man could draw a net in the bay
without his permission. All the wrecks within that har-
bour and country had been his time out of mind. Every
boat fishing or selling fish, paid him 19s. 2d. in money,
beside a barrel of flour, a barrel of salt, a hogshead of beer,
and a dish of fish each day lor the Irish abstinence days,
Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, and if they dried fish
there, they paid 13s. for the use of the rock. Every holly-
butt taken shall be given to him for a ball of butter, or if
concealed for twenty-four hours, the captor forfeits 40s.
For every beef killed they pay 8d., for every sheep or pig.
Id. These, with many other harbour and other dues,
such as lis. 6d. for every bloodshed supplied a very copious

1851.] Miscellany of this Celtic Society. 71

revenue for those days. The town of Kinsalc used to
appoint an admiral for the fishing season, who settled with
the Lord the orders for the fishing, and kept an admirars
court every Monday, all the fines levied for infraction of
these orders being divided equally between the Lord and
the admiral, but if Kinsale did not appoint the admiral,
the Lord might take the same course alone. The Lord had
always the appointment of the constables, baihfi^, and
clerks of the market, in that whole country. But the
O'Driscoll, though wealthy and powerful over strangers, was
not independent. To " his strong neighbour,^^ the Earl of
Desmond, were paid at the inauguration of the said
O'Driscolls, eight beeves or eight nobles sterling, to the
Mac Carthy Keagh, between cess, black rent, &c., a far
more considerable sum, and to the Bishop of Ross,
£,2, 16s. yearly, at Michaelmas and Easter.

From the inquisitions collected by the editor, it appears
that the different branches of the O^DriscoUs had preserved
a very respectable portion of their ancient territory, down
to the reign of James I., but the confiscations from that
period down to the revolution under William the Dutchman,
aided, it would appear by spendthrift habits of some of the
chieftains, left their descendants no^ more than a shred of
the property. During the wars which convulsed Munster
in Elizabeth's reign, \X\Qy appear to have acted the part of
loyal and temporising subjects, until the landing of the
Spaniards in 1601, when Sir Fineen O'Driscoll, urged on
by those two imperious motives, saith the Pacata Hibernia,
"Money and Gold,'' delivered up all his castles to the
king of Spain, but they were guickly retaken by the Eng-
lish, and this Fineen himself it appears was received into
favour. But ho had let about that time, Baltimore, and
his own adjacent territory, to one Thomas Crooke, for
twenty-one years, for .£2,000, and the said Thomas, in the
5th year of James I., had that lease converted into a royal
grant to himself and heirs, of all the rights and property
of his lessor. A son and grandson of Sir Fineen, appear
among the first of those emigrant Irishmen, popularly
known as *^ the wild geese" scions^ of noble houses, who
sought a fortune for themselves in the armies of the
Catholic princes on the continent. Conner O'DriscoU,
son and heir of Sir Fineen, was " a Captain in the Arch-
duke's country, fighting against the Turks; *'his son Cor-
nelius was killed in an engagement of some Spanish ves-

72 Miscellany of the Celtic Society. [Sept J

sels, with the same enemies near the straits of Gibraltar,
in 1619. The Irish bards mourned the absence aad
composed elegies on the death of these two soldiei-s of
fortune, regretting that they had not rather spilled their
blood at home, in restoring the fallen fortunes of their
house. It is much to be desired that whenever wc get
so complete a family sketch as this volume presents, the
bards will not be excluded. They enliven the dull details
of genealogy and inquisitions, and let us know how
people lived and felt in their day. The four poems on
the U'DriscoUs, given in this volume, are worth preserv-
ing, though they must lose much of their beauty in the
very literal translatioii which the editor most properly has
given them. A few brief extracts will show how the oards
felt for the absent Conner and his son,

** Twenty years and more besides

His back is turned to his native territory

The son of Fineen standing the brunt of spears

Without having partaken of the wine feasts of Erin.

On the stormy surface of the furious ocean

The vigilant son of Fineen has met

Hotter trouble in Turkey

In the fight of the wonderfully armed hosts.

Alas for the country wanting the aid

Of the victorious red hand of Conner ;

Alas for the native land that is deprived

Of the man of these warlike achievements.

The son abroad from his people,

The father in decrepid age,

A cause of deadly lamentation to that western land

Which sheltered the great blood of Macniard."

Another bard, after recounting the ancient glories of
the Ithian race, and dwelling with peculiar affection on
their Spanish origin, tells Conner that hot work enough is
to be found at home.

*' Many an eiric besides this

Due to thee, 0 heir of Fineen,

Without denial from the rough hirelings of the English.

It is a pity to brook the grievance.

Much of blood have thev shed on the plain ;

Many heroes who should be lamented

They have slain for a long time back

Throughout the land of the Gael of the ripe fields

1851.] Mheellnny of the Celtic Society, 73

Spill them blood for these bloods,
O hand of battles, O'Oonner,
Accept no eiric for them
But equal slaughter.'*

But the tones of indignation and defiance soon were
turned into wailing, when the same messenger brought to
the southern bays, news of the death of fether and son.

" The land of the Turk exults
That they have quiet on Conners* deaths.
^ lies till morning asleep
Without suspicion, without awakening.
The death of Conner and his father —
It is the anger of God which permitted it.
Hard to Erin is the loss
And perpetual the disaster.
There is not among the vigorous horsemen
(Their high spirit has been saddened)
A man who is not lamenting for them^
Nor a woman joyous in West Munster.
The brightness of the clouds of heaven has darkened,
The fiery lightning spreads,
No tree is seen bending with fi uit o'er the stream,
Because my two heroes have fallen abroad.
The shores and the waves are
The moon and the stars are
In sorrow for the death of the heroes :
And the sound of the cataract grows louder.
Many even of the old English themselves
Have sunk in grief — no feigned grief ;
The fair Gael do for him
Weep ; nor of them need it be boasted.
, Far away from the heroes are their trusted friends.
Far are they from the Church mould of Inishercan,
Cause of heavy sadness that they are so
Young Conner and his father."

For the fate of the remaining 0*Driscolls under Crom-
weirs confiscation, and some notices of a regiment raised
by one of them for James II., with the consequent penalty,
the reader is referred to the volume itself. We close our
notice in the words of one of the contributors to the
miscellanv. " The family of O^DriscoU having fallen into
decay and lost every portion of their former possessions,
it is not easy now to ascertain satisfactorily who is head of
the clan. Most of this ancient sept may now be discovered

74 Miscellany of the Celtic Society. [Sepf«

ill bitter contests with the overseers of the workhouses o{
Skibbereen and Skull, who are more keenly anxious as to
the minimum rate of food to keep alive the animal man,
than the oldest and most calculating political economist of
the day. ' ' Had these poor Irish been black slaves imported
from Africa to the West Indies, with a Brougham and
Wilberibrce to plead their cause, their liberty would have
been purchased for £20,000,000 sterling, but being only
Irish, a loan of £10,000,000 was considered the full value
of their lives, an extraordinary eflfort of generosity to save
some of them from death. ^

There are two poems in this volume on the litttle of
Downpatrick, fought in the year 1260, in which Bryan
O'Neal, King of Ulster, was slain with many chieftains of
that province, and of Connaught. It was the first decisive
blow struck by the English in the North, since the days of
De Courcy. Defended by the natural features of the
country itself, as well as by the superior spirit of its inhabi-
tants (a fact acknowledged in the days of Giraldus), it had
not only remained free from any English settlement, except
in Down, but endeavoured to rouse the other provinces to
a combined exertion for their common liberty. ^ After some
hereditary skirmishes with his neighbour chieftains, the
O'Donnells, and the demolition of some frontier English
castles, Bryan O'Neil held a conference on the shore of
Lough Erne, in 1257, with O'Brian, King of Thomond,
and O'Connor, son of the King of Connaught. The
result, according to the common ' account, was a confede-
racy, of which O'Neal was the head, to resist the
encroachments of the English, and expel them, if possible,
from the land. This project, if ever seriously entertained,
was not attempted until the year 1260, principally in con-
sequence of the dissensions of the confederates, but in that
year the King of Connaught marched to Ulster with the
elite of his dependants, ana joined his forces to those of
Bryan O'Neil at Downpatrick, where the fatal battle was
fought on the Sunday within the octave of the Ascension.
The English were commanded by the Lord Justice Stephen
de Longe Epee, and, as usual, had a large contingent of
Irish supporters, on whom exclusively the blame of the
death of O'Neil is thrown by some Irish authorities. In
the words of the annalist, many of the *^ best and bravest"
of the Irish nobles were left on the field, and the head of
O'Neal was sent over to London as a trophy of victory.

1851.] Mkeellany ofilie CeUlc Socieiif, 75

Gilla Brighda Mac Namee, cliief poet of Ulster, and
a friend and follower of O'Neil, composed on the subject
a poem, of which we give a few extracts in the literal
translation of the Editor.

" Death of my heart ! is the head of Brian
In a strange country under cold clay ?

0 head of Brian of Sliobe Sueacht^,
Eire after thee is an orphan.

Alas that hia noble face was remored from Down,
From the place wherein is the grave of Patrick.
There is in London, under a white flagstone,
A head which the Gael would dearly ransom.
All my cattle, though thou hearest it not, 0 head,

1 would give to ransom thee.
lie gave twenty horned cows

For my poem — a goodly purchase.

Were they twenty cows i^ith golden horns

The honour was greater and better.

The war of the Gael with the foreigners

Was playing for a check of foreign chessmen ;

The foreign pawns checked our chess king.

W© cannot now escape defeat ;

The top of our corn was cut down

By a hideous foreign horde of reapers.

Who came against us on Sunday to Down

When the crop was but to ripeness turning.

The foreigners from London

The hosts from Waterford,

Came in a bright green body thither

In gold and iron armour.

Unequal they engaged the battle

The foreigners and the Gael of Tara.

Fine linen shirts on the race of Con,

And the foreigners in one mass of iron."

Though our poet denounces the foreigners, it is very
clear that he had not very sound notions of nationality^
and that even in celebrating the fame of a man who had
aspired to be the liberator of Ireland, he never could rise
beyond a mere bard of part of Ulster. He recounts all
the victories gained by the ancestors of his patron, in
several parts of Ireland over Irishmen, and even in his
own Ulster, closing his account of these battles with this
singular refrain, ** alas ! they were revenged upon us at
]3own/^ This little incident proves more eloquently even
than the Four Masters themselves, how the very idea of

76 Miscellany of the Celtic Society^ [Sept.

an island, one and undivided, and combined against the
foreigner, had died in the national mind even at this early
period, not fully one hundred years from the landing of
Strongbow. The discord, which for so many ages was to
be the lot of Ireland, could not be healed by the power of
O'Neal, though, says our bard,

** The cow of a poor man was never brought to his house ;

The reliquary of a priest he never violated ;

What curse could have followed him, for which the battle was lost ?

There is no church against which he has sinned."

After mourning for his hero, he introduces the other
brave men who had fallen in arms with him, especially
Magnus O'Cane, who was honoured by another poet with
an elegy more pleasing as poetry, than most of those
hitherto published. It is not so much the dirge of a
national bard, as the genuine effusion of warm personal
friendship for the slain, who was both his patron and
foster brother,

** The tombs of friends are in the battle of Brian ;

Ruined is Eire from one conflict.

The side of the hill i& full of tombs

Whereon the prophesied one has fallen.

Though to me each man is a grief.

For O'Cane, the yellow-haired, I most grieve,

He is the wound of the artery of my Lead ;

This is the blood which I cannot bear.

I gave great love, ah ! woe is me,

To him from the time of my fifth year,

Wo that I have not gone with my beloved.

Early, I loved 0*Cane ;

We used to give the chieftainship in olir sports

To him, when high-spirited youths,

We and the king, on the mound which he disgraced not.

Going thrice around it.

His stipend to me was always earning

Just as if we were his heirs ;

He had for me as much as for two.

Far are we for ever again from our gambols.

Order masses of each priest

For thy foster-brother, for O'Cane,

For the son of the king who bowed in each church.

Let the prayers of each mass be offered.

For mercy to thee in each church,

Were there a thousand students.

1851.] MlsceUany of the Celtic Society. 77

For our son of Ranah there should ascend

Psalm singing from each altar.

As the poetic art is hereditary to me,

For this white sided pure skinned man,

I shall chant a flowerjr dirge

In the hour of solemn prajer for bis soul."

The bard then employs the fond superstition of his
countrymen, which would not allow some of their favourite
heroes to die, but spirited them away to some lonely cavern
or mountain gorge, whence in due time they were to issue to
battle for their country. But we must leave him, with the
hope that archsBologists may succeed in dismterring many
similar elegies.

Two English pieces in the Miscellany are narratives by
Sir Henry Dowera, of events in Ireland during the wars
of Elizabeth. The first under the general title of ** Relation
of Service done in Ireland,*' is a panegyric on Sir Richard
Bingham, governor of Connaught, under whom the author
served. There is but little of novelty in the narration, as
it agrees in all the main points with what is already but
too well known of the iron and ruthless sway of Sir
Richard, over the malcontent Burkes. There is not, per-
haps, in the whole reign of Elizabeth, a name more
execrated by the Irish than his, nor does Sir Henry suc-
ceed in wiping away the imputation of unnecessary cruelty,
though he does prove very satisfactorily, that he was a
successful Soldier, ruling his province with the strong arm
until the O'Donnell came to the rescue, and in a very
short time swept all the English from the castles of north
Connaught, and inaugurated a Burke of his own to govern
according to Brehon law. The " relation' ' appears to have
been written shortly after the recall of Sir Richard Bing-
ham, and perhaps as a defence or apology for the atrocities
laid to his charge. Whether it be fi'om the comparative
youth of the writer, or the nature of the bloody service in
which he had been engaged, the narrative is tinged more
deeply with ferocity, than the narrative of his own services
some twelve years later, which was compiled many years
after the general subjugation of Ireland, at the accession of
James I.

At the close of the narrative, the Editor gives a genea-
logical sketch of Sir Richard Bingham's family, which by
an unhappy coincidence is connected with some of the
most painful passages in Irish story. It epitomizes the

Miscellany of JJie Celtic Sociefi',

t*pj;

I

history of more than one locality, which, dtirliig the late
fiitniiie and evictions, witnessed more misery than the
sword ever inflicted.

"Sir Uicbard left no male issue, and the roprnsontatioii of
tlie family devolFcd on tlie eldest son of hia brotlier Gooi-ge.

"L Ileuiy Biugiiun. Esq, of Castlebar, the son of GGorge
Bingbiim, Governor of Slig'o. wlio waa killed in 15'J3. Thi^ llaary
vas created a Baronet of Nova Scotia, ia 103:^. He married a
daughter of Mr. Daniel Byrne of CaTantecly, a dothior or miir-
diant tailor, ia Dublin, and the sister of Sir Gregory Byniu, aiiceiitor
of tho Bai'on de Tablej'. fiir Ileury Biiig-ham was giiCcBuded bj
Ills eldest son.

" 11. fiir George Bingham, who was succeeded by his oldest son.

" III. Sir Henry, wbo dying without issue, was socceeded by liis
half brother.

"IV. Sir George, who was succoedod by his eldest son.

" V. Sir John Bingham. He was govonior and represcntatira is
parliament of the County of Mayo. He married Anr.o, (iauglit«e
of Agmondesham Vesoy, Esq,, grand niece of the celebrated
Patrick Sarsjield, Garl of Lutan. He was an oRicor of rank ou.
the side of king James, in the battle of Anghrini, and contribatod
to tho Buctess of William, by deserting his colours in the brnut qI
the battle. He died in IJi'.), aad was succeodud by his eldest son.

"VI. Sir John — who dying without issue in 1752, the title
devolved upon hia bfother.

"VII. Sir Charles Biugham, who was raised to tho Peerage on
the 34th of July, 177C, in the dignity of Baron l.ucan of Castlebar,
and advanced to the Earldom of Lncan, 6th October, 1795. Uis
Grandson is IX. Georgo Charles Bingham, the present Earl of
Lueao, who following the example of his aucestors, has removed all
the Burkes and O'Malleys off his lauds, and commenced a aysteni<
of agriculture, by which (though he may perish in tlie attempt,
being overwhelmed by the rates necessary to support his hostages
detained in the poor law prisnus of Westport and Castlebar) he will
do more to reduce the Queen's subjects iu Mayo, in the reigo of
Victoria, than his ancestor Sir George, or the governor Sir Richard
had done in the reign of Eliiabeih." — pp. 238, 2l'9.

Let n3 hope that the feudahsm which has hitherto
doomed all tenant settlers in Irehiiid, sooner or later to
the latp of those wliom they came to dispossess, may be
extinguished belbre it can involve in similar ruin, the des-
condants ot" whatever Knglish families may now be willing
to cast their fortmies on the ancient pulrinionv of tho
Burkes of Mayo.

Besides the proccding brief ge'^'^alogical sketch, tiiere

1 85 1 J Miscellany of Ihe Celtic Societf. 79

are some fourteen pages of editorial matter, consisting
principally of collateral illustrations of the text, taken
from the Four Masters, W ithout intending to underrate
the value of these illustrations, it may, perhaps, be open to
doubt whether they could not have been dispensed with,
and their place occupied by other pieces, either unpublished
MSS. or printed works less accessible than the English
translation of the Four Masters. ^ Probably there is not a
single member of the Celtic Society who has not in his
possession, if not Mr. 0*Donovan*s edition of the Four
Masters, at least the English translation by Connellan.
A reference to either would direct the reader to the page
or year under which the Irish version of Douckra's facts
might be found, and would not such reference be enough
when the object of the society is not to give editorial com-
pilation, but editorial illustration necessary for under-
standing the text? A matter of fourteen pages injudiciously
inserted in so large a volume might easily be passed over,
if we had not more than double that number of nearly the
same character appended to the second tract of Douckra.
While so many folios of manuscripts are lying unpublished
and the distress of the times is paralyzing the efficiency of
Irish literary societies, members will be insisting more
strictly that the greatest possible quantity of original mat-
ter should be given, leaving to better days the elaboration
of these materials into a history of Ireland. But the
acting members of the society must be the best judges of
what their public requires, and the present hint is, with all
due diffidence, respectfully submitted to their consideration.
Douckra's second tract, entitled " A Narrative of the
services done by the Army employed in Lough Foyle,'*
illustrates a very important period of the wars of Ireland
under EUzabeth. It describes the first permanent settle-
ment efiected by the English within the borders of Tyrone
and Tyrconnell. These districts had, it is true, professed
an occasional nominal subjection to the King of England,
but with the exception of a very brief period antecedent to
the invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce, the north-west-
ern Irish were really independent. It was from them that
O'Neil and O'Donnel drew the hardy warriors, who
baffled during nearly ten years the whole power of Eliza-
beth, and attracted the sympathies of Catholic Europe to
the cause of Irish fidelity to the Catholic faith. To efiect
a lodgement in these territories, and cut off the supplies of

Miscellany of the Celtic Societg.

tSept.

the Irish by sea. Sir Henry Douckra was invested with the
conimaiid of an expetUtioii in the spring ot' IGOO, the whole
country from Lough Foyle to the Banri and Blackwater,
being intrusted to nis owu special government. The expe-
dition, consisting of 4000 foot, and '2tMi horse, sailed from
Oarrickfergua on the 6tU of May, and owing to nnfavour-
able winda did not make the entrance of Lough Foyle
before the 14th of the eauie month. Having erected a
fort at Culmore.

" On Iho 22nd of May wee pnt tlie army in order to ntarclie,
and lettviug Captain Laiicelott Atford at Cuhnore with six huadred
mea, to make up tho works, we weut to the Derry, four miles off,
upou the riverside, a place ia manner of an ilaud, comprehending
within It forty acres of ground, wliorein wore the ruiua of an old
Abbay. of a Biahop's house, of two ciiurchea, and at one of the
ouds of it an old castle, the river Loughfoyle incom passing it all on
one BJde, and a bog most commonly wet, and not easily passablfl
ezcept in t>vo or three places, dividing it from the maine land.
This piece of ground we possessed ourselves off without resiatancp,
and judging it a fit place to make our maine plantation in, being'
somewbai high and therefore dry and healthie to dwell upon ; at
that end where the old castle stood, being close to tho water stde.
I presentlie resolved to raise a forte to keep our stoore of munition
and rictuelU in, and iu the other a little above, where the walk of
an old cathedral church were yet standing, to erect another for our
future safetie and retreate unto, upr>n all occasions. The two
shippea of warre, therefore, (ihe couutry all about us being wast
and burned,) I sent with souldiera in thorn to coast all along tho
ahoare for the space of twenty or thirty miles, and willed whereso-
ever they found any houses, ihey should bring away the timber and
other materials, to build withall such as they could ; and O'Cane
having a woode lying right over against ud, (on tho otiier side of
the river,) wherein was plenty of old growne birch ; J dajlie sent
workmen with a guard of soldiers to cut it downe, and there was
not a sticke of it brought homo that was not iirst well fought for.
A quarrie of Btone and slaie we found hard at hand ; cockle-shells
to make a lyme we discovered infinite plentie of, in a little island
in the mouth of the harbour as wee came !u, and with those helpea,
together with the provisions we bought, and the stones aud rubbagft
of the old buildings we found, wee sett ourselves whollie, and with
all the diligence wee could possible, to fortefying, and framing, and
Betting upp of bowses, such as we might be able to live iu, and
defend ourselves when winter should come, and oiir men be decayed,
as it was apparent it would be : and whether this was the rigltb
couree to take or noe, let them that saw the after events be tho
judges of."— pp. 2JS, 23!).

185L] Miscellany of tlie Celtic Societij. 81

Thus were laid on the ruins of the ancient abbey and
churches of St Columba, the foundations of the English
town of Londonderry, so famous in after years as the war
cry of Protestant ascendancy. But all the precautions of
Sir Henry, aided even by regular supplies from Dublin,
would have been insufficient to maintain his ground, if the
never-liailing auxiliary of Irish discord had not come to his
relief. In a few months, his effective force had been redu-
ced to three thousand, but to compensate this loss, Sir
Arthur O'Neale, allured by the promise of the earldom
of Tyrone, came over to the English ; the example was
followed not long after, by some of the O'Dogherties of
Inishowen, and by Nial Garbh O^Donnell, (Neal Garvie,)
who was promised the chieftaincy of Tyr Connell. By the
aid of these deserters, and the landing of the Spaniards at
Kinsale, which drew oflF the two most formidable enemies
in the North, Douckra was enabled to hold his ground,
and fulfill his commission. The differences between his
narrative and those of the Four Masters and Philip O'Sul-
livan are trifling, a circumstance fortunate for him, as the
eagerness with which he vindicates the policy and success
of his measures, might have exposed him to suspicion.

His narrative breathes none of that bigotry which is so
generally associated with the struggle in which he was
engaged. In truth, it would not be easy to ascertain from
his tract what religion he professed ; and the greatest feat
of vandalism recorded by him, was perpetrated (under his
orders,) by Niel Garbh O^Donnell. A great number of
convents, especially of the Franciscans, remained unmo-
lested through the whole reign of Elizabeth. Of these the
most celebrated, was the convent of Donegal, which would
seem to have been selected as a repository for the sacred
wealth of less fortunate houses, as it possessed in the year
1600 forty suits of vestments, many of which were of the
richest and most elaborate materials, and no less than six-
teen silver chalices. Taking advantage of the absence of
O'Donnell, Douckra planned an expedition to take posses-
sion of this convent as a military post.

" I found bj G'Donneirs absence, the country behind him was
left without guard ; the Abbay of Dunegall was kept only by a few
frjars ; the situation of it very close to the sea, and very convoni*
ent for many services, especiallie for a step to take Balbjshannon
with — I concluded, therefore, and sent him away (the said Neala
Garvie,) with five hundred English soldiers, to put themselves into

VOL. XXXI.—No, LXI. 6

82 Miscellafiy of the Celiw Society. [Sept.

this place which thoj did on the 2nd of August. On the 6th of
August, I received a supply of two hundred bundells of match
from Sir Arthur Chichester, from Knockfergus, and my lord
(Mountjoj) having shortlie after performed at Blackwater what his
intentions were, according to the opportunitie of that time withdrew
his army ; and then O'Donnell, with those forces he had, returned
and laid siege to those men, which continued at least a month, and
in the mean time, on the 19th of September, the abbay took firo
by accident or of purpose, I could never learn, but burnt it was all
save one corner into which our men made retreate, and through the
middcst of the fire were forced to remove their provisions of
victuell, and the very barrells of powder they had in store.
Captain Lewis Oriell, Commander-in-Chief. The face of this night's
work, (for the fire began in the evening,) is easier to imagination
to behould, O'Donneirs men assailing and ours defending, the one
with as much hope, the other with as good a resolution, as the
accident on one side, and the necessitie on the other, gave occasion
for."— pp. 266, 256.

After the defeat of the Irish at Kinsale, O'Neil, the
veteran chieftain, eflfected his retreat safely to his strong-
holds in the North. The following extract gives a vivid
Eicturo of the natural fortress from which he had so long
affled all the armies sent against him. When one looks
at the ordnance map of the county of Tyrone, and finds
the whole tract of land, stretching from Dungannon to the
Bann, the Blackwater and Lough Neagh thickly dotted
with homesteads, it requires no slight effort of fancy to
imagine the same tract, such as it appeared 250 years
ago to Douckra, from the hill on which he took his obser-
vations. The terror of the Irish recreant crew, when they
found themselves approaching the last retreat of the great-
est of the O'Ncirs, comfirms what all accounts represent
as the almost superstitious power w^hich his name possess-
ed over the minds of his northern countrymen. An enor-
mous sum had been promised for his head, and yet the
bravest and most politic of his antagonists complained that
there was no chance of having him cut ofi*.

•

**Onthe 18th of November. I received an advertisement from
Sir Arthur Chichester, that Tyrone had betaken himself to the
Gljnnes, and that his opinion was, if hee were well set on bj both
of us together, his heade might perhaps be gott, or at least he
might be driven and forced out of that place ; wee discoursed upon
it bj lettres, and agreed to giv the attempte, and on the 18tli of
December, with all the forces I was able to make, which was 50

1851.] Miscellany of the Celtic Society. 83

Iiorso, 450 English foote, 200 of O'Caine's, and 100 of O'Doghertj's
Keame, Neale Garvie being then and long before estranged from
mo, I came to Dungannon, "which is five miles short from the entrie
of the Glyunes. The first day I laj still and gave advertisement
onclie to Sir Arthur Chichester of my coming, "whoe was, as 1
imagined, nowe come to the other side. The next day I went up to
a mountain four miles off, where I viewed them with myne eye,
and it seemed as wee were tould before, they were 10 myle broad,
and 20 myle long, all covered with thick wood : and questioning
with my guides about the course I should hould, to make my entry
into them, I found nothing but variety and contradiction of opinion,
and therefore, the next day after, at night, I appointed Captain
lialph Bingly, with lOO light English, and most of O'Caine's and
O'Doghertle's Kearne, to go on as far as they could, and bring me
certain word how the ways were. They had not gone above a mile
when the Irysh mutyned, and for noo perswation would go any
further, and O'Caine's men plainelie broke off and went homo to
their bowses ; 0*Doghertie's returned to the camp, but firmlie
maintained tho wayes wore not passable. Upon the 23rd, 1 held a
consultation with the captains, and conferred with our guides in
their presence, and thus by concurrence of voices wee gathered
from them of the most cortaintie, that there was noe wayo possible
to come near to Tyrone, but we must first for one day's journey,
abandon all carriadge but what we had on our backes, and incampe
one night in the woodes $ that at our first entrance wee must pass
a brook, which if rayne fell, wee could not repass again till it
ceased ; that Tyrone lay plashed all around with trees, and had
sent most of his cowes to Hugh Gillen. where it would be in vaine
to make after them. And demanding their opinions hereupon,
they all agreed seeing the Irish soe backward, and these incon-
veniences withall, it wore better to leave good store of Irish to ply
liim with continual stealthes, and they thought it would weaken
liim more, and be a safer course, than to attempt him with these
mayne forces, and that at the uttermost it could not be above two
or three moueths, before of himself he would be forced out of that
place to a more open country, where he might be dealt withall
better cheape. Yet, if Sir Arthur Chichester thought otherwise,
and would on his parte resolve on a day to enter on his side, let
them have knowledge of it, and all excuses sett aparte, upon perill
of their lives, they would meet him, or lye by the waye. I presentlie
sente away my lettres with advertisement of this resolution of
theirs, and attending an answere on the 26th, I received one from
him dated the night before, wherein he wrote he had heard but one
from mee, and that was at my first coming ; wondered at it, and
desired to know my resolution, setting down four dayes longer to
stay for it, and then if it came not to be gone ; whereby it appeared
that most of my letters were miscarried ; for it was well known
there bad not one night past after I came, but I writ and made one

84 Miscellany ofihe Celtic Society. [Sept.

dispatcli or other to him, and the next day our principal guide (to
increase the suspicion,) came awaj from us and went to Tyrone.
Another knowing that thirty cowes were coming to me upon the
waye from the Derrey, went and intercepted them, and followed the
same waye. A rumor was raised alsoe, that Neale Garvie had
preyed the Liffer, and lastlie» our strength was nowo decreased at
least fifty men that were fallen sick. The consideration of these
thinges added to the former, made us then to send worde again be
should not staye upon us, for we were fully resolved to return home ;
and soe wee did, leaving behind us one hundred Irish, that under-
took to be still doiog upon him, and presently after placing a gar-
rison upon the Band, (Bann) both to stoppe his traffique that was
for many reasanes, that hee could not we.l live without, as alsoe
to prevent his escape by sea, if he should attempt it, as I was
crediblie advertised he was in consultation to doe : besides^ 1 had
inieTiained divers HuU severallie undeiiook to deliver me his Jtecide. I
know Sir Arthur Chichester had done the like, and soe attending
the opportunitie that time should offer, being come home to the
Derrey, this bussines came in my way to deale in.*' — pp. 261, 266.

After this ineflfectual attempt of Douckra and Chiches-
ter to- capture the veteran chieftain, he succeeded for three
months longer to keep his enemies at bay, but the spring
promised him no hope of being able to sustain another
summer^s campaign, the youn^j ^ops having been all
burned down by the enemy, and nis herds of cattle either
captiu'ed, or driven for protection to the mountains which
could not afford them subsistence. His faithful adherents
had all resigned themselves to fate, and at length he
accepted the terms offered to himself, not knowing at the
time that the Queen, whose armies he had so often defeated
had died, and that the object of the new sovereign, in par-
doning and reinstating him in almost all his former autho-
rity, was to use him for a time as an instrument to keep
Ireland quiet, under the new succession, until a gunpowder
plot had consolidated the Stuart^s throne, and enabled the
faithless James to partition the broad lands of Tyrone and
Tyrconnell, among Saxons and Scots.

The sudden change of fortune in favour of O'Neil and
O^Donnell, imposed a very disagreeable duty on Sir
Henry Douckra. He was now compelled to break all the
engagements which he had made with his Irish auxiliaries,
and to draw the English sword in securing the rights oi
those whom he had been commissioned, a few years oefore,
to destroy. It was in vain that he urged the text of his
instructions from government, by which he was ordered to

1851.] Miscellany of the Celtic Society. 85

draw over as many of the respectable Irish as he could,
and to promise to them on the faith of government, lands
under English tenure, independent of the chieftains whom
they had betra^^ed. The answer to all his remonstrances
was curt and pithy : the good of the State required the
restoration of the earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, He
was compelled, in the first instance, to turn his arms
against ^Niel Garbh O^Donnell, the arch traitor, without
whose aid, himself and his gallant soldiers would, probably
have left their bodies under the ruins of the new English
town of Deny. Nial, in his submission, had never
dreamed of descending to the rank of a mere British sub-
ject : he aspired to the chieftaincy of Tyrconnell, which
had been promised to him as the reward of his desertion to
the British camp, and that dignity he now resolved to
take upon himself^ according to the due forms of Irish
inauguration.

"Neale Garvie (as I said before,) had a long tjme carried bimself
discontentedly, estrainged himself from me — hee did openlie and
contjnuallie contest with mee to have the people sworn to him, and
not to the Qaeene ; to have no officer whatsoever but himself, in
bis country : hee would not suffer his men to sell us their owne
goodes, nor work with us for money, nor till or sow the ground any-
where neere us. Now, it fell out that, my lord (Mountjoy) wrote
for Rorie O'Donnell (the new earl,) to come to him to Dublin. Heo
being in Conuanght, desires first to put over his cattle into Tyr-
connell ; my lord gives him leave, and writes to Neale Garvie, that
be shall not molest nor trouble them ; and so Rorie takes his jour-
ney. He was no sooner gone, and the cattle put over, but Neale
Garvie, notwithstanding my lord's command, ceizes them as hia
owne, under pretents that they were the goods of the country
belonging unto him. Complainte made, my lord writes to me to see
them restored. I send unto him and he refuseth. My lord upon
that, bids mee discharge him of his entertainments, and writes to
him without delay, to come to him to Dublin. Hee growes more
discontented and deferes his going. Thus it runnes on for at least
three moneths together, and neather would he come to mo nor my
lord, nor by any meanes be pers waded to make restitution. In the
ende, he assembles of his own authoritie, all the country at Kil-
macrenan, a place where the O'Donneirs use to be chosen ; there
be takes upon himself the title, and with the ceremonyes accus-
tomed, proclayms himself O'Donnell, and then presently comes to
me to the Derrey, with a greater troupe of attendance than at any
time before, and they styling him at every word, •* my lord." As
foono as I sawe him, I ai^ked him how ho was thus suddenlie stept

86 Jfllscellany of tlie Celtic Society. [Sept.

into the name of a lord ; he told me they called him so because he
was 0*Donnell. I asked him by what authoritie ho was soe, and
he saide by mj lord deputies ; I badd him make that appear to me
and all was well. Heo plucked out a lettre written unto him from
my lord, about two yeares before, superscription whereof was this :
" To my very loving friende O'Donnell." I asked him if this were
all the warranto he had, and he said, yes. I asked him wliy he
went not to my lord all this while, nor camo unto rae sooner, nor
restored Rorie O'Donnell's cattle ; his answer was tliis, * You know
the whole country of Tyrconnell was long since promised me, and
many services I have done, that I think 1 have deserved it, but I
sawe I was neglected, and therefore I have righted myselfe, by
takeing the cattle and people that were myne owne, and to prevent
others, have made myself 0*Donncll : now, by this meanes, the
country is sure to mi." — pp. 2GG, 2^7,

But *' the country ** was not sure to him; he was
threatened with imprisonment in irons ; was compelled to
restore all Rorie's property ; and for his treachery to his
name had no consolation but that of being the last
O'Donnell who received from the Abbot the white wand
of sovereignty over Tyrconnel, on the inauguration stone
at Kilmacrena. He had no substantial reward save the

Jroperty he possessed when he first met Sir Henry
)ouckra, and he died some years later in prison, where
he was thrown by those whom he had so faithfully, and
for his kindred so fatally served.

The other Irish chieftains who had joined the English,
nict with similar treatment : O'Dogherty was disappointed
in his expectations of the promised chieftaincv of Inishowen:
young Turlough O'Neale was told he should be strongly
recommended by the Lord Deputy to the mercy of the
late rebel, the earl of Tyrone ; and O'Cane found that he
should still pay his rents to the same earl.

"In the meane time, my lord Hugh (tho earle of Tyrone's eldest
son,) and I went home together, and when wee came to the Dorrey,
I sent for 0*Caine and told him what my lord's pleasure was touch-
ing him. He began presontlie to be moved, and both by speech
and gesture, declared as carnestlie as was possible to bo highlie
oflfended at it, argued tho matter with moo upon many points ;
protested his fidelitio to the state since he had made profession of
it ; asked no favor if any man could charge him with the
contrarie ; said he had always built upon my promise, and my lord
deputie*s ; that hee was now undone, and in worse case than before
he knewe us, shewed many reasons for it ; and asked if we would

1 85 1 .] Miscellany of Ihe Celtic Society. 87

claime him hereafter, if hee followed mj lord of Tyrone's councell
though it were agaiost the kinge, seeing he was in this manner
forced to be under him. In the end, seeing no remedie, he shaked
handes with my lord Hugh, had the Deviil take all English men, and
as manie as put their trust in them, and soe in the shewe of a good
reconciled friendship, thej went away together." — p. 277.*

But the severest trial to which Douckra was subjected,
was the personal sacrifices he was obliged to make of his
own share of the spoils of war. The salmon fishing of
Lough Foyle was to be the reward of him and his des-
cendants for ever, for having planted the English flag on
its hitherto independent shores. As soon, however, as the
earl of Tyrone had submitted, an order from the Lord
Deputy cancelled the grant, and the earl's men had full
permission to fish the river. This and other indignities
roused the proud spirit of Douckra; he sold his house and
three quarters of land which he had purchased, and his
company of foot, and his company of horse, for a smaller
sum, he protests, than his horse alone had stood him in,
and retired from the public service, in which he had played
a part, not inferior to that of many others, whose descend-
ants retain to this day the broad acres and populous towns
with which they were rewarded. There is an air of honest^'"
and candour in the greater portion of the narrative, that
becomes a soldier : but however faithful he may have been
to other parts of his instructions, he appears to have sadly
neglected the order for establishing the Christian religion:
his chief performances in that line consisting exclusively
of the conversion of some Churches and monasteries into
garrisons, which was indeed tlie only reformation hitherto
introduced into Ireland, by the generals and clergy of the
great Protestant Queen.

* Philip O'SuUivan describes Niel Garh, (Asper) Tenting his
indignation in a somewhat similar strain : ** Aspero illae tantum
possessiones quas habuit priusqiiam ad Anglos defo cerat adjudi-
cantur et baronis titulus offertur. lUe ira percitus titulum aocipe
re noluit et in Iberniam postquam redivit, Dubhlinnae in senatum
ad regium consilium productus, senatores et gentem Anglicam
asperrimis verbis exagital, non ab Anglis sed ab ipso, Catholicoa
fuisso devictos atque doboUatos — a consilio et Anglis improbe «ft
pei^fide cum ipso agi neque fidem impleri." Inde seipsum quod
unquam Anglis fidcm habuerit execratur, dirisque imprecationibus
devout." — T. iii. Lib. viii. cap. vi.

88 Miscellany of tlie Celtic Society. [Sept

It is true, when occasion required, the conquerors could
solemnly protest they had no intention of interfering with
religious liberty. O^Neil, in one of his projected 8ubmi&-
sions, had stipulated on behalf of himself and his^ adhe-
rents, for the free exercise of the Catholic relirion, to
which an answer was returned with all the imitated air of
injured innocence, ** that there never had been any inten-
tion of interfering with his priests; a proof, says the
national bard, Thomas Moore, that religion was not one
of the causes of Irish war under Elizabeth ; a proof,
he should have said, of the unscrupulous mendacity with
which the government of England sought to palliate the
atrocities perpetrated in the name and for the establish-
ment of the reformed law creed in Ireland. In no place
where the English po^ver prevailed, were the Irish Catho-
lics allowed their public worship. The same injustice was
continued under James I., and the same indignant denials
of any persecution for religion's sake, were made by him
and his ministers, and solemnly circulated through the
Catholic courts of Europe, with all the |>omp of a royal
declaration, at the very time when the prisons of Dutlin
were filled with recusant Catholic mayors, magistrates,
and burghers, and when Catholic bishops and priests were
hunted down by the government marshals. The same
spirit of craft and venom inspired succeeding governments,
and appears this day in the person of Whig ministers, who
so kindly volunteer their assistance to protect the Irish
Catholic against the Pope, and revive by their insulting
enactments, but to their own certain discomfiture, a deep
and burning indignation, which can be controlled by
prudence alone.

We take our leave of the Celtic Miscellany with a
sincere wish for the success of the society. As it has
outlived the last three years, fatal to so many projects :
there is reason to hope that it will not die out, until it has
either completed its mission,- or at least diffused a taste
which will not rest satisfied until the work is done.

1851.] Public Instruction in France, S^c 89

Art. rV. — ^1. Public Instruction in France under M. Guizot Qmrterly
Review. December ^ 1848.

2. Redt complet des Actes du Gouvemement provisoiree; par Emile
Carrey. Paris, Durand, 1848.

3. Rapport Jait, au nom de la Commission chargee de preparer une
Loi sur VJEnseignement, par M. Jules Simon, representant du peuple.

4. Loi sur VEnseignement^ suivie dcs Rcglements d^ Administration puh-
lique Decrets, Oirculaires et Instructions MinisterieUes rdoHves a soz
execution, Paris, Dupont, 1851.

5. La Verite sur la loi d^enseignement, par Mgr. Parisis, ev^que de
Langres, Paris, Lecoffre. 1851.

6. Premier Rapport sur les trawzux du Comite de VEnseignement libre,
Paris, Lecoffre, 1851.

7. De VEducationy par Mgr, Dupanloup, Ev^que d^ Orleans, Paris,
Lecoffre, 1850.

8. Idees sur V Education, par un Prof esseurdePhHosophie, Paris, Lecoffre.

9. L^ Education, Journal d^Enseignement elhnentaire, pour les Ecoles et
les Families. Paris, Rue Garanciere, 10. 1851.

AT the close of the year 1848, the Quarterly Review
published an article upon Public Instruction in
France under M. Guizot. The author professed to write
it under the immediate inspiration of that celebrated
statesman. In France, it was generally believed to proceed
from his own pen, and to those who are familiar with his
style and productions, the circumstance seems by no
means improbable. ^ But whoever may have been the real
penman, the paper itself could not fail to call forth great
interest, more especially among our neighbours. The
reader will not therefore feel surprised that we should
place it at the head of our references, when purposing to
draw his attention to the state of Public Instruction in
France since the law which was voted upon the 15th of
March, 1850. That law may be considered as the Magna
Oharta of French liberty, in regard to|Education, for some
time to come ; against which were brought in array the
whole forces of an infidel university, a legion of demagogues,
nay, more, the enmity of many eminent Catholics them-
selves. Down to the present moment, there are not a few

00 Public Instruction in France [Sept.

amongst the latter who consider the above measure as a
cowardly concession to the bad passions of the age ; whilst
on the other hand, a Montalembert, a De Falloux, a Dupaa-
loup, at the head of an intrepid band of staunch believers,
rnamtain that the most has been made of the existing
circumstances. Indeed, upon being duly referred to, the
Pope himself has issued an answer favourable to the bill,
and this alone is sufficient to quiet such consciences as
may be over scrupulous upon the subject.

It has been the good fortune of the present writer to
pass a portion of his life among many of the distinguished
persons who played a prominent part in the late contest ;
for years he has enjoyed their confidence, and through
their kindness, as well as through means and^ papers of
his, he has been enabled to glean information which
otherwise might have been withheld from an Englishmau.
To both of these sources he intends to refer without
hesitation, though at the same time, he trusts, with such
discretion as may justify the confidence he alludes to.
These observations he feels necessary, however, when
about to contradict some of M. Guizot's statements.

It is now well known that when Napoleon founded his
new university, he remodelled it in such a way as to
mould the rising generations according to his own ideas
of military despotism. The establishments which Catholic
piety had liberally provided for Education in France had
all fallen a prey to revolutionary fury ; and disposing as he
did of large resources, the emperor found it no difficult
task to ensure an absolute ascendency to the new-born
fabric. Besides this, a true scholar was then a rarity in
France ; classical information was indeed at so low an
ebb that Cuvier, the man who was the grand tool in this
intended restoration, was frequently at a loss to find
masters who could accurately write their own language.
Such had been the fatal consequences of the storm which,
during the short space of ten yeai's, had covered the
country with blackened ruins. It became a matter of
necessit^r to select for professors and masters, men who,
after giving up their clerical duties, had turned out to be
a scandal and a shame to the Church. The hatred which
such persons bear to their former profession and creed, is
a well-known fact. One instance alone we will quote, —
that of Daunou, who acquired great historical eminence.
An oratorian when the French Revolution broke out.

1851.] under the New Laio. 91

he ardently espoused its tenets, and was afterwards named
professor of History at the College de France, but carried
to the tomb that bitter hostility to the Church which, to
the last, he never failed to impart to his numerous
auditors. To these circumstances we may, in a^reat mea-
sure, attribute the main feature of the Imperial University.
From the very first, it bore the stamp of infidelity : though
as long as Napoleon was hurried on through his unparal-
leled career of victory and conquest, this fundamental
deficiency was hardly apparent. Provided the university
furnished him with his usual supply of engineers, diplo-
matists, and agents of all kinds, he was not the man to
search into their morals or religious principles. His chief
object was to obtain an annual crop of officers to fill up
the vacancies made by the bloody hand of war. His
views being realized on this score, every other considera-
tion was held in a secondary light by the great warrior
of modem times.

But as soon as the Bourbons were restored to the
throne, the infidel tendencies of the university were glaring
enough. The pupils who yearly issued forth from her
grammar schools scoffed at religion as at a superanuated
system which had lived out its day, and was only fit for
old women or children. Supported both from within and
without, the university made use of its influence to grasp
political power ; it became the grand bulwark of opposition
to government fi^om 1820 to 1830 : whilst — melancholy
indeed is it to say-r-mere striplings considered themselves
as heroes, if they succeeded in giving public and scandalous
evidence of the utter contempt in which they held Christian
belief of any kind. To produce examples at present,
would be merely awakening sad recollections which are
better consigned to eternal oblivion.

Such were the results of the system adopted in France,
and which has lasted down to the present day. The State
University had the monopoly of Education, and hence arose
that heinous idea that the State alone was entitled to
mould the nation according to its own particular views.
The author of the article in the Quarterly maintains,
that no other system was practicable at the close of the
eighteenth century, because, "on the one hand, after, and
even before, the year 1789, the sentiments and cast of
thought which had mainly given birth to all these
(religious) foundations existed no longer in France, or

92 Public liistruction in France [Sept*

breathed but feebly ; and, on tbe other, revolutionary
governments and revolutionary legislation absolutely
forbade their revival/' Now, it is hardly possible to
suppose, that M. Guizot should ha,ve ignored certain facts
which flatly contradict this assertion. Though certainly
the revival of monastic institutions was strictly forbidden
at the period he alludes to, still a large proportion of the
French population fondly clung to so much of religious
education as they were enabled to acquire. Notwithstand-
ing the jealous watchfulness with which the Imperial
government prevented the Clergy from receiving any
other pupils but those who formally engaged to follow a
clerical life, there were many families who succeeded in
smuggling their children — we must be allowed the expres-
sion— into the episcopal seminaries. Again, when under
the restoration, the strong hand of power somewhat
relaxed on this head, the schools governed either by the
Jesuits or other Clergymen were so full that no room was
left for new comei's. Towards 1828, there were no less
than one thousand pupils at St. Acheul, whilst the other
establishments of the same kind numbered each between
three and five hundred scholars. This we believe to be
no mean specimen of what Religion might have even then
done for Education in France, had not the jaundice-eyed
liberalism of the period, spurred on by the jealousy of the
University itself, caused such institutions to be closed, on
the plea that they were not conformable to the law of the
land.

On the other hand, may we not, in our turn, consider as
mere sophistry the above affirmation as to the impractica-
bility of religious educational institutions in France at
the dawn of the present century, when we remember the
numberless fetters with which the statesmen of the time
had shackled the Church? Chain a man down to a pillar
within a dungeon, and then tell him to move. Will yon
not be looked upon either as a madman, or a tyrant
deriding his victim ? Such was, however, the case widi
the Church. First of all, we find that the university is
made the sole vehicle of instruction to almost ever^ class
of society, on pain of forfeiting many advantages impor-
tant to their future condition in life, and then we are told
that religious institutions had become impossible under
existing circumstances ! Secondly, the State binds the
Church to bring up no other pupils but such as intend to

1851.] under tlie New Law. 98

follow a sacerdotal calling, and then again turns round
to say : *^ Lo ! ^ try now if you can p^ive rise to ?iny
establishments similar to those of former times?'* Can
any one in bis senses believe the man who wrote the lines
we have quoted to be serious, unless he had a pai'ticular
end in view ?

This was the state of things when the elder Bourbons
were hurried from their throne in 1830. Already, however,
a re-action had begun on the question of education, M. de
Lamennais, in his better days, had spread an alarm con-
cerning the obnoxious tendencies of the monopolous
university. A small, but chosen band, formed of Monta-..
lembert, Gerbet, Lacordaire, De Coux, headed the
movement. Some of those distinguished men resolved to
estabhsh a free school in Paris, but their attempt was
defeated by the interference of a police officer, who shut
up the school. At that very moment. Count de Monta-
lembert was providentially called to a seat in the House of
Peers, through the demise of his father, and thus was the
case brought before that assembly. We may date from
that day the beginning of the ci'usade against modern
infidelity, which has successfully ended in the law of 1850.
It was then that the youthful defender of Catholicism in
France reaped his first laurels. From that period, day
after day, month after month, year after year, has he
unflinchingly, strenuously fought out the great battle —
sometimes standing alone, at others supported by two or
three friends in the. upper house, such as Beugnot, and
Sauvaire-Barthelemy ; — De Carne, Da Corcelles, De
Cormenin, among the deputies. By degrees, the episco-
pacy became ardent in the advocacy of the cause. As
religion began to resume her long-lost influence, new
adherents flocked around, and the Committee for religious
freedom was at last estabhshed. The services which
it rendered are now familiar to the Catholic world : but
brilliant as may be M. de Montalembert's fate hereafter as
a leader in Parliament, or a statesman in the Cabinet, the
religious historian will ever dwell with delight upon this
period of his lifetime, when at the very outset of his
juvenile career, he resolutely espoused the cause of justice,
religion, and liberty ; — the cause of the weak against the

Eowerful, of the ignorant against the learned, of the
umble believer against the proud and scoffing infidel.
We well remember the unfeigned astonishment of the

91 Public List ruction in France [Sept.

old Peers, brouglit up in the slmffljng practices of courts,
upon seeing him launch out into this new course. There
were some who deemed him a madman, others a fanatical
bigot, but many more thoufrht him guided by secret
motives of private interest. Who has proved the madmaa
at last?

But whilst this was going on, the university was by no
means dormant. Freedom of education bad indeed been
promised by the new charter ; but the great object was
now to delay, if not to render abortive, the fulfilment of
that clause. The spirit of the middle and lower classes,
still so inimical to the Church, through the years which
followed upon the revolution of 1830, first proved a suffi-
cient barrier against the righteous plea of the French
Catholics, \yhen this was exploded as beinff worn out,
the several ministers of public nistruction — and M. Guizot
among the others — came forth with bills which they knew
would be rejected with disdain, as inefficient for the
intended reform. But above all, the positive antagonism
of Louis Philippe to the measure, was by far the most
formidable obstacle. Had he continued to reign, freedom
of education would have still been withheld, if it be true
that he had pledged himself not to sanction any bill of
the kind as long as he should live. Perhaps the real
ground of his obstinate resistance was the certainty that
a generation brought up under the influence of religious
prmciples would have turned a deaf ear to those solicita-
tions of private and political corruption that formed one
marked feature of that princess reign. Upon that corrup-
tion he seems to have rested as on a firm basis of his
throne : time has evinced the fallacy of his calculations.
But peace be to his tomb ! Providence has visited him
with afflictions which have descended unto his children's
children.

The contest, however, was becoming hotter and hot-
ter on each side. The university felt keenly that the
competition of the clergy in the education of youth would
finally determine the lall of her influence and power,
notwithstanding the numberless means which she disposed
of to prop up the old system. Consequently, measures
were taken in order to oppose a strong barrier to the rising
tendencies : the oligarchial members of the council of
public instruction were selected in such a way as to ensure
the ascendancy of the university principles, even against

1851.] under iJie New Law. 95

any minister who miprht show himself favourable to the
cause of liberty. Within that council M. Cousin held the
sway, and through him, by this small body of eight council-
lors, the minister of public instruction was himself kept
at bay. The latter felt at last the yoke so heavily that,
towards the close of Louis Philippe's reign, M. de Salvandy
found himself compelled to assert his own constitutional
independence, by modifying the organization of the council.

But the most pernicious eflFects of this system became
more particularly manifest in the colleges or grammar
schools. Through Cousin's influence, M. Dubois wa«
maintained at the head of the Normal school in Paris,
which provided professors for all France. He is well
known to be a man of Voltairian principles, and the con-
sequences of his direction may be traced in the fact that,
when the late revolution broke out, a large proportion of
the pupils enlisted under the banners of Socialism, a,
circumstance which filled the whole country with dismay.
It stands to reason that the professors of history and philo-
sophy generally leaned to that eclecticism which M. Cousin
had introduced as the very apex of human wisdom. Under
his guidance, some of his more immediate disciples such
as Saisset, Jules Simon, and Franck, undertook to publish
the principal works of the most celebrated philosophers,
with the accompaniment of notes and introductions which
seemed destined to breed infidelity within the hearts of
such youths as would venture to read them. These cheap
publications were ushered into the literary world with
due honour and ceremony, and attended with extraordi-
nary success.

But at this juncture, Providence brought down the
whole fabric with a crash, that humbled to the dust those
who were intent upon rearing it to the very skies. One of
M. Cousin's most distinguished pupils, M. Joufii'oy, died,
leaving behind him some manuscripts on philosophical
questions. He had long been a professor at the Sorbonne,
and was one of the most popular teachers. His old master
offered to revise these manuscripts for publication, but

freat was his astonishment to find whole pages, wherein
ouffroy lamented, in strong and touching language, the
loss of his faith, and the utter inability of his philosophical
tenets to determine anything concerning a future state,
and the immortality of the soul. This was, indeed, a
severe blow. What was to be done? M. Cousin, trust-

90 Public Instruction in France [Sept.

ing that lie alone wa s in possession of the secret, boldly
decided upon omitting the obnoxious passages. It so
happened, however, that M. Pierre Leroux, the celebrated
Socialist, and a sworn enemy to the eclectic school, had
also obtained communication of JouflFroy's productions.
When the spurious publication was issued fortli, he imme-
diately wrote a bitter article in the Hevue Indep^ndante,
in which he restored the suppressed manuscripts. The
effect, as well may be imagined, was astounaing, and
Cousin never quite recovered from the shock. This
brought to light several other circumstances of his private
life, circumstances which by no means did him any credit.
It is, indeed, a curious incident of this remarkable period,
that M. Cousin's opponents were secretly abetted by his
most favoured disciples, who generally accused him of
insincerity, as well as of a constant tendency to acts of
arbitrary power.

But still the university did not, in the least, abate its
efforts to uphold its ^ monopoly per fas et nefas.
Obstacles of every species were thrown into the way of
those who were desirous of founding new establishments
upon the free principle. Clergymen, who had fulfilled all
the obligations imposed by the prevailing system, were
suffered to wait for years before they could obtain the long
wished for permission, too happy, indeed, when they
obtained it at all. " Under the late government," says
the Bishop of Langres, in a recent publication, " I myself
solicited, during no less than fourteen years, the permis-
sion to open a private school, upon a most Umited scale,
though the establishment offered the best possible condi-
tions, and was situate in a part of the country where such
a school was decidedly wanted.** {La verite sur la loi
d* enseignement, p. 46.) And the venerable Bishop adds,
that the university had jealously kept to herself the mono-
poly of these institutions, ever dispensing any exception to
to the rule with the most sparing parsimony, rfow, if
such was her conduct towards a man of parts and eminence
like Mgr. Parisis, who would believe that her des-
potism did not weiffh still more heavily upon the backs
of those who could dispose neither of his means nor
interest?

' Yet even this was not all. The most influential periodi-
cals and journals teemed constantly with praises of the
university ; its system was hailed as the offspring of a

I85l-) under the New Lata. 97

genius, unparalleled in any time, as a legacy of that Napo-
leon who had conquered Europe for France ; as a sacred
relic of that revolution to which the whole nation was wont
to cling with the most devoted fondness. Nay, religion
herself was made to^ chime in with the general outcry
against the profane invaders of the Sancta Sanctorum.
A whole host of chaplains and religious observances within
the walls of the schools were brought forward, to show
that, even on this score, the university was not behind-
hand. Were not the pupils taken to Mass every Sunday ?
Were they not solicited to go to confession and commu-
nion ? To be sure, the i>roiessor of history and philosophy
might have his own private opinions, but his was the
demesne of science and learning ; his was not the duty to
reconcile philosophical tenets or dogmas with religious
practices. The spirit of the age, besides, was decidedly
enlisted on the side of the free-thinkers, or, at least, indif-
ferent thinkers: no power under heaven would gainsay
such a plain matter of fact assertion as this.

The courts of justice, in their turn, were set at work to
protect the laws of the land. It being once admitted that
the university was the state itself, undertaking to teach
youth, woe to such writers who ventured to deal too
roughly with the monopoly ! Many an author was prose*-
cuted and fined for publisning brochures upon the subject.
And as the pertinacious resistance of the Catholics still
gained ground, the old cry of Jesuitism and absolutism
was renewed, in order to goad into fury, the passions of
the multitude. Little did the blind provocators of this
tempest imagine that, ere long, they would rue their
efforts, by witnessing the overthrow of all they had cherish-
ed, supported, and defended. Little did they suppose that
in one snort year, a throne so long surrounded with appro-
bation, so long upheld by the eminent talents of the most
consummate statesmen, would fall to the ground, burying
under its ruins their fondest hopes and most sanguine
expectations.

The present sketch would not be complete, were we to
pass unmentioned what the Orleans dynasty did for popular
education. This was more particularly the achievement
of M. Ghiizot, and the principal weight of the article in the
Quarterly Review bears upon this part of the question.
When that able minister undertook the direction of the
educational department, the primary schools were in a

VOL. XXXI.— No. LXI. 7

98 Public Instruction in Fiance [Sept.

most melancliolv condition. If one excepts the establish-
ments headed hy the Christian Brothers, it will be no
calumnious imputation to affirm that the instructors of the
people were almost universally below their condition.
Many of theni combined trades of sundry sorts and kinds
with their duties as schoolmasters, sometimes leaving the
hammer of the blacksmith, or the form of a tailor, nay,
even the tap-room of the publican, for the alphabet and
catechism. Too often, indeed, did their conduct offer a
scandalous contradiction with their calling, and the author
of these lines has some reason to believe that even at the
present day, this is no very extraordinary occurrence.
Such was the shocking state of things when M. Guizot
proposed a remedy. His law of 1833 became the founda-
tion of a better, though by no means a good system, as it
enabled the university to stretch her arbitraiy sway over
the whole population of village schoolmasters and institu^
tions. That such was not the primitive intention of the
minister we candidly admit, but the fact shows with still
greater evidence, how strongly the monopoly was linked
with every part of the social body in France.

^ According to that law, popular education formed two
divisions ; the one elementary, consisting of religion, read-
ing, writino:, the French language, and arithmetic: the
other, of a higher cast, included the elements of geometry,
with its application to the uses of life, lineal drawing,
surveying, physics, and natural history, the rudiments of
the national history, singing, &c.

Every commune or parish was to have its primary
school. But at the very outset we meet with the startling
fact, that a mere youth, eighteen years old, was at liberty
to open a school, provided he had undergone an examina-
tion before the proper authorities. And as if this were not
enough, this striphng is declared to be free from suspen-
sion, unless he had been guilty of some gross breach of
morality, and then he was brought before a committee,
(comite d'arrovdissementj to which was entrusted the
superintendence of the popular schools. Even after the
decision of the commissioners, the delinquent might appeal
to the Board of Public Instruction, and the reader is suffi-
ciently aware of the tendencies manifested by that omnipo-
tent body.

Here a question naturally arises : What influence had the
parish priest over the whole system ? In what degree was

1851.] under the New Law. 99

he allowed to interfere ? The thirteenth article of the law
answers, that in each parish a local board shall be estab-
lished, with the view of superintending the parish school.
The cure is one of its members, but as the mayor, usually
some ignorant boor, presided, and no less usually sided with
the master, who acted as recorder and secretary to his rustic
worship, the influence of the pastor was so far neutralized,
that he generally abstained from being present at a meet-
ing where he was sure of having to encounter the most
decided hostility. Indeed, M. Guizot himself provoked
that very hostility, by the language he used in a letter
addressed by him to the schoolmasters, on forwarding the
bill to them. ** Should it fatally happen,'* says he, ** that
the minister of religion should abstain from giving the
schoolmaster marks of proper regard, the latter is doubt-
less not obliged to humble himself with a view of re-ac-
quiring it, but he will apply himself to deserve it more and
more, through his good conduct, and will know how to
wait for it. The success of his tuition must disarm unjust
prejudices, whilst his prudence must afford no pretext for
intolerance. He must avoid hypocrisy no less than
infidelity. Besides, nothing is more desirable than union
between the priest and the teacher ; they are both invested
with a moral authority ; both stand in need of the public
confidence ; both may agree to exert over children, though
by various means, a joint influence.'*

Now, disposed as the popular teachers generally were,
thejr considered these words as establishing them upon a
footing of equality with the priest, and this principle was
indeed strongly inculcated in their minds, during the
ordeal they underwent in many of the Normal schools.
From several authentic documents in our possession, we
gather that such was one of the most fatal and apparent
consequences, both of the ministerial letter and the law.
In regard to the superintending committees, their watch-
fulness was next to nothing. A confidential and highly
important communication now before us, and sent up
to Paris by an oflScial of many years standing, puts
forth the fact in a most glaring light. In his eyes, the
committees are usually formed of men who are utter
strangers to the art of tuition ; they consider the masters
merely as agents, whose mission is to impart a few elemen-
tary notions of instruction ; but of the moral influence the
latter ought to exert over rising generations, they seem

100 Public Instruction in France [Sept.

not to have the slightest idea. This is pushed so far, that
a master must be guilty of a most degrading fault indeed,
to elicit from the commissioners any measure bordering
upon severity. As for the delegates — another class of
siiperintendents — their interference is set down as noiight.
" ^During a period of fifteen years/* says the official we are
quoting, *'not one single delegate has even been elected
in my department ; in fact, the institution of High Com-
mittees, though a fine thing in theory, because the law
supposed them to be filled with men devoted to their
duties, aware of what is really wanted in popular education,
and austere in their habits of life, the institution has ever
been attended with the most insignificant results/'

And then the writer goes on to show that every wheel of
this boasted machine is utterly powerless to work out its
intended destination, so that even such teachers as were
really zealous in the fulfilment of their duties, soon fall
into torpor and discouragement, from the want of that
efficient inspection which might have supported them in
their endeavours.

Now, it must be likewise remembered, that these state*
ments do not proceed from one single person, whose
opinion may have been biassed by local prejudices. In
parts of France, most distant from the place where this
gentleman resided, complaints of the same kind were con-
stantly made, and the degradation of the popular teachers
had become a subject of dread and disgust for all thinkin^^
minds. In another confidential document, penned by one
of the most eminent and venerable men in France, who
has made the education of the labouring classes the ^ great
object of his life, we rneet with observations of a similar
nature. " The committees,*' says he, ** instead of assem-
bling once every month; as was required, hardly ever met
at all, and consequently the Prefect and his clerks had all
the business themselves. Many of the official inspectors,
again, were not to be trusted ; their mode of inspection
was distorted with pedantry and bureaucracy ; the conduct
of the schoolmasters such, in m.ony cases, that the
parishioners evinced the greatest repugnance to receive
them, and a no less great alacrity to part with them shortly
after they had entered upon duty. In regard to the exami-
nations, the official programme was by far too extensive, as it
tended to make every teacher a man of learning, and thus
to breed discontent within his breast, when he was once

1851.] under the New Jmw. lOl

Bettled down in a sequestered country village. Besides
this, the examinations were conducted in the most arbi-
trary manner, even when the candidates were laymen, if
they did not come from the Normal schools. The teachers
were also far too independent — a most alarming evil,^' adds
the writer, *^ for on the one hand it obliges a parish to keep
a bad schoolmaster, and on the other, he is himself freed
from a salutary dependence upon local authorities.^^

It would be useless and fastidious to multiply our state-
ments. The reader has now before him evidence sufficient
to show how far M. Guizot failed in his attempt to endow
France with that moral popular education which it was his
view to obtain. By haggling with religion as to her inter-
ference with schools, he virtually defeated his own views;
by putting the teacher upon a footing of constant defi-
ance with the parochial pastor, he opened the door to
that practical infidelity which it was his sincere wish to
prevent. In regard to the legion of municipal, depart-
mental, and central authorities, established to nurture
and provide for popular instruction, we can assert with
reason, that they were totally inefficient to effect their
purposes, that they clogged rather than helped the exten-
sion of knowledge, — tnat, above all, they were a real
obstacle thrown in the wa}^ of those moral influences,
without which instruction is but a sham, and education
nothing else but cant. Singular though it may appear,
yet the several ministers who succeeded M. Guizot in his
station, at the head of public instruction, continued to the
very last to proclaim the efficacy of the system; and as
late as 1847, M. de Salvandy hailed, in magniloquent
terms, the gradual progress of the French people in point
of morality, intelligence, and information. The official
agents of the monarch were thus lulling themselves to sleep
by the murmur of their self-given encouragement, when
the storm of February, 1848, brought them but too soon
back to their own senses.

At the very first outbreak of that revolution which, in a
few months, spread over the greater part of Europe, every
fraction of the conservative party felt the necessity of com-
bining their efforts to restore something like rule and
order. ^ Accustomed, for a long time, to habits of severe
discipline, the Catholics soon took the lead in the move-
ment. Whilst many a quondam liberal and infidel crouch-
ed before the reigning powers of the day, the latter appear-

l02 Public Instruction in France [Sept.

ed in the municipal elections, in the clubs, in the national
guard, in every place where there was either danger to
incur, misrule to repress, or good to bring forth. Headed
by their usual and most distinguished leaders, they sooa
rose to a degree of political eminence, which, since that
period, has been constantly on the increase. Thanks to
this new incident of the revolution, clergymen and bishops
were elected for the constituent chamber. ^ M. de Falloux
was singled out for the ministry of public instruction, and
a large proportion of religious youths, formerly belonging
to the Cercle Catholique in Paris, were chosen for their
zeal and talent, to fill stations of high trust and impor-
tance, either in the magistracy or the public administra-
tion. The current of public opinion now ran most decided-
ly in favour of religious principles. The blow, indeed, had
proved a severe one, and many an infidel father have we
known who rued the da}r when he had delivered up his son
into the hands of a Voltairian university, that great Moloch
to whom had been sacrificed more than one generation.
This state of public feeling brought again the promise of a
free system of education into the republican constitution,
though under the superintendence of the state, it was
added, by way of precaution. That this proviso was
intended by the republicans to become, in time, a starting
point of enslavement for the Church, may be gathered
from the strong opposition they offered to the law recently
framed upon the subject, as well as from the circulars
which M. Carnot, a member of the provisional government,
addressed to the primary schoolmasters, previous to the
general elections of 1848. His official station at the head
of the department of public instruction, made him
thoroughly acquainted with their moral dispositions, and
he was no less aware that their pecuniary situation would
make them the ready tools of those who would flatter tlieir
vanity, and show them in the distance a higher remunera-
tion of their services. For it was one of the great errors
of the then existing law, to have fixed at 200 francs, or
eight pounds a year, the miserable stipend of men who had
often large families to support, and who laboured under the
greatest difficulties. Now there were not less than 24,000
schoolmasters in France belonging to this class. Accord-
ingly, M. Camot came forth in the National Assembly,
on the 30th of June, 1848, with a decree, purposing to
establish a schoolmaster and mistress in every village ; a

1S51.] under the New Law. J 03

house, a field, a garden, a good salary, and a pension, were
promised to each of them. All the children in France
should be compelled to attend the schools, and a charge of
forty-seven millions of francs, (about two millions sterlmg,)
should be borne by the state, to defray the expenses of
these obligations. M. Oarnot acted very wisely in not
binding himself to time as to the fulfilment of these
wonders.

Indeed, this fine plan was but the continuation of a
series of circulars previously issued by the minister, in
which he had constantly excited the passions and vanity
of the schoolmasters. As early as the 27th of February,
1848, one of these performances, which are hardly less
notorious in France than the celebrated bulletins of
Ledru Rollin, called upon them to increase as much as
possible their own private information. They were not to
confine themselves to the instruction they had received in
the Normal schools, but every path of science must lay
open to their ambition. Mathematics, natural history,
agriculture, physics, would soon become a part of their
accomplishments. ** The interest of the republic requires,**
says the minister, ^*that every door of the university
hierarchy should be thrown open as wide as possible for
these popular magistrates.^^

By another circular, bearing the date of March the 6th,
1848, M. Carnot decided that the schoolmasters should
teach the children their duties as citizens, thus introducing
the unruly passions of the revolutionary club within the
placid region of popular education. They were likewise
to expatiate among the people upon their rights and
duties in regard to the Republic ; — to show their fellow-
citizens whom they must elect for their representatives in
the forthcoming parliament. ** The greatest error,** con-
tinues the muiister, in a well known passage, ^* the greatest
error against which we have to guard our rural populations,
is the idea that either education or fortune is necessary to
become a representative. As far as concerns education, it
is evident that an honest peasant, endued with good sense
and experience, will represent far better in the assembly
the interests of his class, than a well-informed and rich
gentleman (qu*un citoyen riche et lettre), who is a total
stranger to a country life, or blinded by interests different
from those of the great body of peasantry.**

This sample is sufficient^ we believe, for in the worst

104 Public Instruct Ion in France [Sept.

days of the great French Revolution, can we hardly find
an instance of such bare-faced sophistry, in whicn the
advantages of ignorance are extolled over the rights of
information and good breeding. And could any one be
astonished that after similar proclamations, the school-
masters should have turned mad ? Once used as political
agents, they launched out into all the varieties that dis-
tinguish the roseate Republican from the blood-red
demagogue. As their most influential members signalized
themselves by their anarchical tendencies, the nation
gradually recoiled with hon-or from the sight, and this con-
tributed perhaps more than anything else, to open the eyes
of the French to the glaring delinquencies of the system
of national education, which had been strenuously upheld
so long. The re-action was universal — and indeed, as is
ever the case on such occasions, the innocent suffered along
with the guilty, from the general feeling of enmity which
arose against this unfortunate class. That in many places
the schoolmasters showed themselves, zealous, active, and
unassuming, is a fact, which we ourselves have been able to
ascertain through most impartial and authentic informa-
tion ; but the day was now against them all. The re-
action had really begun : — God grant that it may be a
lasting one.

Soon after the memorable insurrection of June, 1848,
M. de Falloux became a member of a new ministry, and
he, a most religious Catholic, a staunch defender of free*
dora in education, was placed at the head ofpublic instrao*
tion. What could be more significant ? From the very
first, he considered himself as being called there, — as we
have heard him say — for one single object, viz. — that of
framing a bill destined to realize the wishes of all sincere
Christians on this most absorbing question. To lose no
time, he immediately summoned an extra parliamentary
commission, so formed, that every opinion was represented
within it by its most distinguished membei'S. On one side
we find the bishops of Langres, Orleans, Rheims, the
Abbes d^Alzon and Sibour, cousin to the Archbishop of
Paris ; Montalembert, Beugnot, de Corcelles, de Men-
truit, de Riancey, de Melun, Michel, Cochin, all ardent
defenders of the Catholic opinion ; — on the other. Cousin,
Thiers, Dubois, St. Marc Girardin, Giraud, who were the
efficient protectors of the old university system. At the
very same juncture, the national assembly had likewise

1 85 1 .] under the New Law. 105

elected a parliamentary commission, which was to discuss
a bill previously drawn up upon the same subject, by M.
Camot, of which M. Thiers afterwards said that he would
overthrow two or three governments rather than allow it
to pass. The reporter, M. Jules Simon, is a professor of
Eclectic philosoi)hy at the Sorbonne. His report, which
was read at the sitting of February 6th, 1849, was but an
insignificant modification of the former legislation, and
this alone would show what confidence was to be placed in
the liberality of the Republicans in regard to education.
It is almost useless to add that the above report never
became a law of the country, or that everv useful clause it
might contain was afterwards embodied in the bill, now
forming the ground-work of French legislation concerning
this most important topic.

Thus, the whole interest of the case and the eyes of the
country were concentrated upon M. de Falloux^s commis-
sion, over which he himself presided. It would be needless
to place before the reader the sharp warfare to which the
debates of that commission gave rise in the journals of the
day ; — but as those very debates have never yet come to
print, and as we have enjoyed the advantage of perusing
some important notes made on the spot, we shall avail our-
selves of the opportunity to bring out such facts as may be
of interest to an Englishman. Many a severe lesson may
be read out of the documents we allude to; never perhaps
did appear in more vivid colours, the danger of giving up
into the hands of a centralizing government, the soul and
intellect of youth.

• J A circumstance which, from the very first, struck most
forcibly the commissioners, was the demeanour of M.
Thiers. Instead of meeting in him with a staunch de-
fender of the University, as he formerly had been, they
heard him with astonishment proclaim at once his
decided hostility to the prevalent system, more particu-
larly in regard to popular education. Throughout the
whole discussion, which lasted nearly six months, he
invariably attacked it in the most bitter terms. On this
new ground, he displayed all the vigour of his powerful
intellect, all the poignancv of his keen satire, all the
sound reasoning of a real statesman. Cousin, on the
contrary, supported by Dubois, no less unflinchingly put
forth his arm to defend, as was natural enough, the fond
o£&pring of his own creation, the source of all his influence

106 Public Instruction in France [Sept.

and power. The antagonism of these two men became
an inexhaustible source of interest and reflection for the
by-standers, as if Providence had purposely laid before them
the ever instructive lesson of a highly-gifted man» who is
terrified into an abjuration of the principles which had
hitherto guided his conduct, by the overwhelming tide of
Revolutions,

The question was broached at the second meeting of the
commissioners (Jan. 8th, 1849), by a general debate upon
the subject. How were the rights of individual freedom
to be conciliated with the high superintendence of the
State? To what extent was that superintendence to reach!
In what way again should it be exerted, and by whom!
What degree of impartiality could it offer in regard to the
capacity, morality, and religion of those who aspired to
the calling of a teacher? All these questions and others
of no less import which the reader will readily supply, were
taken up in a most animated manner. To the objections
raised by the champions of the University, M. de Mon-
talembert aptly replied, that the very possession of freedom
would precisely contribute to conciliate the rights of both
parties, by giving to men of exclusive, nay of extreme
opinions — to men who considered Christianity, whatever
form it might assume, as indispensable, and as no less
indispensable, the possibility of choosing for their children
that education which they thought most proper.

And here it was that M. Thiers assumed the position
which he ever after maintained. ** The Revolution,*' said
he, ** had given rise to new duties. AVas it possible to allow
a Proudhon, a communist, an Epicurean, to become a
teacher of the people ? I say this ;'* continued he, — " just
the same as in former times, there existed a sort of philo-
sophical hypocrisy, so now a days we have to meet a new
peril of portentous magnitude, and the first thing we have
to do is to begin with the schools. For my part, a con-
version has come over me : — I am of opinion that the
interests defended by M. de Montalembert must be re-
spected, and hence I conclude that doctnnes of some kind
or other we are bound to have on this head. But then,
has society at large a right to profess them likewise?*'

This was answered in the affirmative even by M. Cousin,
though he contended that the law of 1833, was sufficient
to meet all exigencies. *' As for religion, the schoolmaster
had but to make the children repeat the catechism, and

1851.] under the New Law. 107

the Scriptures, which he might likewise expound in an
edifying manner. If this had not been the case of late, it
was simply because the University discipline had been
forcibly relaxed. But even now, when there was any
grouna for alarm, were not the mayor and the priest ready
at hand ; and supposing the proper committee once informed
of the fact, could the latter not impart the remedy i^

It is easy for the reader to see tnrough the flimsiness of
this mode of reasoning. M. Cousin was perfectly aware
that the very guarantees intended by the law of 1833, were
null and effete ; he was perfectly aware of the sheer impos-
sibility in which they stood of doing any good, or putting
an end to any harm. The late elections, in wliich the
schoolmasters had played such a conspicuous, such a
lamentable part, proved this beyond dispute.

Upon perusing attentively the documents now before
us, we are particularly struck with a circumstance which
proclaims more eloquently than anything else, the real
state of French society. Whether Cousin, Dubois, or
Montalembert, or Koux Lavergne are speaking, they all
agree in one thing, — the total disruption of family ties
within the body-politic, and the folly which prompted both
university, government, and public or private teachers of
all descriptions, to lift individuals out of their class, by
showing them in a mazy distance a dazzling goal, to attain
which they were to sacrifice every noble inspiration of the
human heart. This, this is proclaimed the great, the
momentous, the gigantic evil of the day, — and against
this must be levelled the effort of every true patriot. On
one occasion more especially, this feeling breaks out from
M. Thiers, in a most melancholy tone : —

'* For mj part," says he, " I am much alarmed at the state of
Bocietj, and our danger is far greater thau we imagine. Truly we
have lately won a victory, hut what security is there in that against
the future ? Something has indeed heen done, but much more
still remains behind. We must be bold, very bold, as to the
remedy, for bold we have a right to be. Our former quarrels are
all over. Two bodies present themselves, the clergy and the univer-
sity. I supposed the former desirous of encroaching upon the
rights of the latter: I was against this tendency. But now, now we
have been vanquished. We have no more to decide whether we
are to grant, or not to grant freedom of education ; liberty we must
have, liberty we will have. In my opinion, I should like to see the
alliance, the coalition of tlie above two bodies for our commou

108 Public Instruction in France [Sept.

defence. Doubtless the law of 1833 contains manj good things,
but it is inefficient, llere are two men, the one a layman, the
other a priest, who has eight hundred francs a-jear, and often less.
The priest is resigned to his humble oompetenoj; the lajman, oa
the contrary, is an enemy to the priest and to society. And to be
sure, he must be strong, indeed, brought up as he is, not to hate
society. When M. Camot introduced his bill, I was struck with
horror, for I saw before me 37,000 Socialists, 37,000 anti-curates,
37,000 preachers of Socialism and Atheism. Our first measure
must thus be to bring primary instruction within narrow limits^
and if it could be imparted by the parish priest, so much the
better. Reading, writing, and casting up an account, is quite
sufficient. It is the same with morality as faith, it must be forced
into the heart, and we should act like madmen were we to argue
about morality. We ought to strengthen clerical inspection, the
curate roust have that influence which he now has not. We have
been told that here below, everything runs according to chance —
an allusion to words attributed to M. Marrast We hare been told
that everything is right, provided it gains its object, that the
rich alono withhold from others the enjoyment of riches ; that
every one will be happy when everything is overthrown. But
there is another philosophy which hath said. Learn to sufer here
below. For my part I know none better."

In this wajr did the former minister of Louis Philippe
reason, declaring that instruction must neither be gratui-
tous, nor obhgatory, but reserved to those who could
afford to pay for it. He inveighed with bitter sarcasm
against that smattering learning which only contributes
to make a man discontented with himself and others.
When once on this track, he was carried so far by his
feelings, that one of the most eminent Catholic members
was obliged to interrupt him by saying that he would at
last bring back the nation to be a set of barbarians, and
that nothing could be more foreign to the spirit and
opinions of the Church in all ages. The warmtn of the
debate reached the utmost lengths, and we do not feel our-
selves authorized to repeat many an expression which
would startle the reader. Suffice it to say, that the tear ol
present dangers, and the appalling consequences of the
doctrines which had so long reigned paramount over
French Society, were exposed in all their ghastly naked-
ness. In the midst of these heated and contending
opinions, M. Dupanloup, the bishop of Orleans, interfered
with the authority of his well earned influence, and greatly
contributed to settle the question of gratuity.

1851.1 under ifie New Law. 109

'^Ile was a decided partisan," he said, " of a gratuitous educa-
tion, but at the same time it ought neither to be lavished nor
imposed upon those who benefit bj it, and a religious education
was, moreover, an indispensable requisite. Has the state really a
soul, as we have just heard ? It is a question I shall not deter«
mine ; but at any rate, a regular authority must exist, and the men
invested with that authority have their duties. And what are
those duties ? We must neither lessen nor exag(>:erate them, for by
exaggeration we shall produce a bad fulfiment of those duties, and
at the expense of the true duty. By exaggeration, the state will
prevent those upon whom such obligations may fall from going
through them. Thus, for instance, it is the duty of every indivi-
dual to labour, but if the state undertakes to supply him with that
labour, the individual will sink into idleness.

" Now, a fundamental distinction has been omitted. Essential
duties and essential rights are correlative to each other ; a duty
without a right is an utter impossibility. A duty and a right are
both of the same nature ; if the duty be rigorous, the right is like-
wise so ; if not, the right is not rigorous. Absolute duties give
birth to absolute rights ; from imperfect duties proceed imperfect
rights. Whatever is essential to the nature of men and things,
gives rise to absolute rights and duties ; but whatever is merely
useful or beneficial, to imperfect rights and duties. The former
are embodied in the laws, the latter are not. When in the laws,
they are introduced under the protection of the sword; the latter,
on the contrary, are merely a matter of moral appreciation and
propriety.

** Thus, justice Is absolute, charity is not. What is essential to
the very existence of society is embodied in the law, and it becomes
our duty to repress any infringement upon it. Such, for instance,
is robbery. If the case be otherwise, no law interferes, unless it
be to offer assistance and a tutelar intervention. Now, what is the
duty of the State ? Is it not to maintain public order, to protect,
to ensure the public service, to guard the public interest, to offer
a common guarantee to private interests ? Thus, again its duty
is to protect our lives, not to make us live ; to protect our labour,
not to secure us labour. No : it is not bound to have both virtue
and merit for all ; the State must not substitute its own virtues,
its own duties, for the virtues, for the duties, for the resources of
every individuaL

" But still there are duties not to be found in the laws, imperfect
duties which we strive to fulfil with all our might, with our whole
energy. Of that kind is the duty of imparting instruction. As for
the Church, she never considered as one of her duties to deal out
primary instruction, except in regard to the catechism ; because
reading and writing are not essential to salvation : yet, notwith-
standing this, she was ever favourable to instruction, because she
deemed it favourable to civilization, though at the same time she

1 10 Public Instruction in France [Sept.

st'idiousl/ grounded that self-same Instruction upon a religioiis
foundation.

" And lastly, I conclude bj saying, that gratuitj may be a mere
fact stated in the law ; but as it proceeds from no duty, so it will
establish no right/' j

This masterly improvisation, of which we have endea-
voured to give the pith and gist, carried away all opposi-
tion, and the principle of gratuity was adopted as a boon,
when feasible^ but not as an obligation of the State.
Shortly after, the Commissioners plunged into the practicid
part of the business, and as most of the dispositions
adopted within its bosom, after the most mature deliber-
ation, have now become the law of the land, it will be better
to give a brief analysis of the new regime of which France
is now making a trial. Besides, our chief aim in quoting
the preceding debates is attained if we have succeeded in
showing what deep, what ardent passions were at work
behind the scenes, as also, to what a height the evil itself
had at length reached.

After a serious perusal of the law upon public instruc-
tion which at present rules French society, every reflective
mind is particularly struck with one strong feature that
seems to pervade the whole. Its principal object was obvi-
ously to conciliate the antecedent system of a monopolous
University with the new-born principle of freedom. When
abuses are inveterate, it is no easy task to eradicate them
completely. It is with the diseases of the body politic as
with those of the human constitution, — a transitory, and,
as it were, an accidental complaint^ is overcome with corn-
parative facility by the physician ; but in cai^es of chronic
disorders, deeply rooted in the frame, and having become
a sort of second nature with the patient, a long and tena-
cious course of medicine can alone conquer the morbid
germ, if, indeed, it ever succeeds in expelling it from the
system. France has been for years, nay, for ages, accus-
tomed to look up^ to Government for every measure of
importance which interests her moral, intellectual, or mate-
rial condition. This has become such a marked trait in
the French character, that what elsewhere is undertaken
by individual energy and enterprize, is expected among our
neighbours to proceed from the initiatory impulse of the
State. So very predominant is this tendency, that we have
ourselves heard M. de Falloux complain, in a large and emi-

1851.] under the New Law. 1 1 1

nent assembly of Catholics, of their backwardness in sup-
porting their religious establishments of education, and the
folly which prompted them to send their children to the
University schools, becaiise the latter enjoyed the protec^
tion of the State. That such a tendency has, more parti-
cularly of late, been highly detrimental to France, and
occasioned more than one revolutionary catastrophe, there
can be no doubt whatever. But though her lawgivers
and statesmen may bitterly lament this state of things, it
is ever their duty to keep it in view when they are about
to legislate for their country. Hence, we believe, arose
those numerous impediments by which freedom in regard
to education is still clogged in France. Its most fervent
devotees were obliged, as it were, to inoculate liberty as a
sort of curing virus, and in small quantities, into the
general system, leaving to time, and to the remedy itself,
to work out their own effects. This view of the subject
may account for the strong opposition that the measure
has had to encounter from many staunch Catholics, who
considered it as being too restrictive of liberty. This may
likewise afford us a clue to the hesitation which the Bishop
of Langres, for instance, manifested, when he voted for a law
in some respects obnoxious to his feelings as a christian
and a prelate. But in this view, we have also the secret
motive which prompted the conduct of those members who
both proposed and defended the bill. The English reader
will, therefore, do well to bear it in his mind, when dwelling
upon the question.

The present law of Public Instruction contains twogreat
divisions: — primary and secondary instruction. Within
both, it introduces the new element of freedom, by infusing
within the whole body numerous representatives of religion
and of the family, as being the two great foundations of
society.

In the first place, the Board of Superior Assessors,
serving as a permanent council to the minister, instead of
being formea of men solely chosen among the professors
of the University, and limited to eight in number, now
amounts to twenty-eight councillors, out of whom seven-
teen are named by election for the period of six years.
They are also liable to re-election. Among theni we find
four Archbishops, or Bishops, two Protestant ministers, an
Israelite, three Councillors of State, three members of the
supreme Court of Cassation, and three members of the

112 Puhiic Instructioti in France [Sept

Institute. The President of the Republic has a right to
select three head masters of Free Schools to sit in the
Board. So much for the share of liberty. On the other
hand, the interests of the university are represented by
eight councillors, who continue to form a permanent
section.

This Board holds its meetings four times a yenr, in Paris,
under the presidence of the minister. The whole course
of their proceedings might be called, with no impropriety,
the Grand Education Assizes.

*' The duperior council," says the fifth article of the law, '' may
be called upon to give its opinion upon projects of lavs, regiUations,
and decrees relative to instruction; and generally upon all such
questions as the ministers shall submit to its deliberation. It is
necessarily called upon to giro its opinion — upon regulations con-
cerning the examinations, and programmes for the course of studies
in the public schools, concerning the surveillance of free schools,
and, in general, upon all decisions concerning establishmeuta of
public instruction ;

'< Upon the foundation of the faculties, and colleges, (grammar
schools ;)

'* Upon the assistance and encouragement which are to be
granted to free institutions of secondary instruction ;

'* Upon such books as may be introduced into the public Bchools,
and on those which ought to be prohibited in free schools, as being
contrary to morality, to the constitution and the laws.

*^ The council issues its paramount decision upon all sentences
pronounced by the academical councils in the cases determined by
the fourteenth article of the present law.

« Every year the council presents to the minister a report upon
the general condition of instruction, upon the abuses which may
arise in educational establishments, and upon such means as may
afford a remedy thereto."

The above article is highly important, for it contains the
nncleus, it forms the scaffolding of the whole law. Upon
this main-spring of the Superior Council depends the
working of the entire machinery. With its three constitu-
tive elements of election, deliberation, and judicature, the
Superior Council may be termed a diminutive parliament,
in which the vitiil interests of education are solemnly dis*
cussed and decided.

Another most radical alteration effected by the new law,
is the establishment of eighty-six departmental academies,
instead of the twenty-seven that precedently existed. The

1851.] under the New Law. 113

primitive idea originated, we believe, with M. de Falloux,
and gave rise to ^eat opposition on the part of the Catho-
lics. They imagined that it would lead to the aggrandise-
ment of the university's power ; and this might certainly
have been the case, had the rectors of those academies
been invested with the same omnipotent sway which they
enjoyed under the former system. But here again we find
an organization similar to that which characterizes the
Superior Council. Every local academy is provided with
a Council of Assessors, formed of the prefect, the bisliop,
or his delegate, of members of the clergy, the magistracy,
and the council general of the department, whose influence
and high station contribute to control the Rector in the
fulfilment of his duties. Their decisions in regard to the
local schools of the department are no less binding than
those of the Superior Council;^ to whose supreme power
recourse may be had, however, m case of need. Annual
reports are addressed by these departmental academies to
the minister, who transmits them to the Council.

Down to the present moment, there is no reason why
this complicated machinery should not answer its purposes.
The tide of public opinion on the one hand, and the fear
of the Supreme Council on the other, has generally induced
the Rectors to enter resolutely upon their duties m such a
way as to efiect a reform in the colleges, and more parti-
cularly among the popular schoolmasters. From all we
have seen of their reports to the central administration,
and their circulars to subaltern agents — and we have seen
not a few — one can easily trace the influence of the close
watchfulness of those who are placed by them to help them
in their duties. Besides, ^ as many of these Rectors are
new inen, and of sound religious principles, both from con-
scientious feelings and motives of personal interest, they
are disposed to do their best. So far as this goes therefore,
we may deem the great work of Reformation to be upon
a good footing. The other official agents, such as the

Seneral and local inspectors, are now more or less depeii-
ant upon the Superior Council, a circumstance greatly
contributive to excite their zeal and energy.

If from the upper regions of public instruction in France,
we descend into the interior organization of the law, we
find that the popular schools form two great classes — the
communal and free schools. The former are official
establishments, authorized and supported by the parish ;

VOL. XXXI.—No. LXI. 8

1 14 Public Instruction in France [Sept.

the latter are the result of individual energy; but the
tutors in both are obliged to undergo an examination
before competent authorities ; both are liable to various
sorts of inspection. The yearly allowance of no commu-
nal or parochial schoolmaster can be less than d630,
(600 fr.), and in towns it rises to much more. If the parish
cannot eke out the stipend, the department comes forward
to make out the sum from its own resources, and if even this
fails, government is bound to furnish the surplus. By
this means, eveiy master is sure of a decent competency ;
and, consequently, the law requires that he should give
himself up to no trade whatsoever, though he may add a
trifle to his income by acting as recorder to the mayor,
and by chaunting at Church on Sundays and festivals.

Great care has been taken to subject the popular
schools to minute inspection. They are visited several
times a year by the official agents of the academy, and
every three months by delegates chosen among the most
influential and intelligent persons of each canton. We now
have before us several circulars addressed to these dele-
gates by the Rectors, who require that they shall closely
investigate the religious, moral and scientific condition of
each school, as well as of the man who directs it. A cure
is always, by right, a member of this delegate body,^ and
as it in no way is dependant upon the central administra-
tion— as again, the delegates really form a free-working
agency in the whole system, representing as they do the
interest of each family in the well-being of schools — ^it is
easy to see that, if they consider their duties in a serious
light, they may gain great influence over popular education
at large. We should even be disposed to affirm, that the
result of the experiment now going on^ in France, will, in
a great measure, be decided by the activity and zeal of
these delegates. Should they lapse, as they did before,
into apathy and neghgence, it will be all over, we fear, with
the faith and morals of the forthcoming generation.

Another great innovation concerns women. Heretofore,
they underwent a public examination, a circumstance
which sometimes exposed their modesty to the sneers and
smiles of those who attended the examinations, and like-
wise frequently made them liable to fail in their attempt
from the eflccts of constitutional timidity. This has been
done away, and at the same time the credentials granted

1851.] under the New Law. 115

by superiors of religious corporations to their nuns, will be
held as a sufficient proof of capacity.
^ Such are the main features of the actual French legisla-
tion in regard to popular education ; and we must now
turn our eyes to secondary instruction. The reader is well
aware of the terrible evils which prevailed in this depart-
ment. It was impossible to explode them at once, for the
remedy lies more in the influence of religious and moral
instruction than in anything else. This must be the work
of time and persuasion, not of legislative intervention.
The only object that could really be attained, was to put
an end to the monopoly of the university, without breaking
down its own establishments, which would have given rise
to an accusation of tyranny. This has been accomplished
by introducing one ^eat principle within the law. Though
every person intending to set up a grammar school, must
undergo a certain ordeal, and have taken a degree of
bachelor of arts to prove his capacity ; that once done, he
is totally independent of the State, unless one considers
as a fetter the necessity of submitting to a sort of a
sanitary supemsion. Be a man a priest, a Jesuit, a
bishop, 6r a simple layman, provided ne regularly proves
his capacity as a teacher, he is at liberty to establish
as many seminaries as he pleases. The immediate con-
sequence of this is, that every department may, if it
chooses, deliver up its colleges or schools into the hands of
any fit person who shall ofier better conditions of morality,
economy, or scientific acquirements than those who pre-
viously directed these establishments. We shall soon see
how much good has already been wrought by this most
siniple measure, which restores liberty to the enjoyment
of its legitimate rights.

The reader has now before him the principal outlines
of the French law. It has been working and bringing
out its natural consequences a little more than a year.
Though this is but a short time, whether in favour or
against the experiment, still there are data sufficient
to throw some light upon its definitive results, should
it be allowed fair play. The first thing which strikes
us is the strong tide that from that moment has run
in for the promotion of religious institutions. Though
the French clergy was ill prepared for the exigencies of
the case, the people impelled its members to open new
schools, and those already existing were immediately

116 Public Instruction in France LSept

crowded to excess. Many of the provincial colleges have
been handed over to the diocesan bishops, who are left at
liberty to remodel them, and choose such teachers as they
may please. The towns in which these institutions exist
find a twofold advantage in this: firstly, they are secure
of a sound religious education for youth ; and secondly,
their expenses are far less than when these schools were
nnder the immediate sway of the university, though
usually they did but little credit, even in a scientinc
sense, to the rule of that body.

On the other hand, the Jesuits have founded no less
than thirteen schools, which are mostly open to daily
pupils, and they have been obliged to refuse piany ofiers
of the kind. This is certainly a most significant cir-
cumstance, and a tolerable answer to the hue and ciy
which was set up against those venerable men at the
close of the late nionarchy.

But a fact still more glaring, is the disgust with
which parents turn away from the university schools.
In Pans, the latter have lost nearly one-half of dieir
former pupils, and of course the proportion is still
larger in the provinces. We could name one metropolitan
college that is kept up this year merely because the
government has supplied a large sum of money, in order
to meet this untoward circumstance. Now, this institu-
tion has ever been famous for the proficiency of the
students in mathematics, and a large proportion of those
who prepared for the Polytechnic and military schools
yearly flocked to its classes. But it was likewise no
less notorious for the turbulent and irreligious disposi-
tions which reigned within its walls.

Another no less remarkable fact is the removal of M.
Dubois from the direction of the Normal school in Paris.
The university has found out at last, that parents are
frightened at the prospect of seeing every year a phalanx
of infidel or even socialist teachers, emerge from that estab-
lishment, and spread their fatal doctrines through the
whole country. The gentleman who has succeeded to M.
Dubois, is, we leani, a man of unflinching principles in
regard to religion, and intent upon efiecting such reforms
as he shall deem proper. It was only on this condition he
consented to accept his new station.

However, no one could expect that such a powerful body
as the University should tamely submit to the influx of

1851.] under tfie New Law. 117

liberty introduced into the new legislation of France as fai*
as concerns education. Both in the offices of the Ministerial
department in Paris, and throughout the whole hierarchy
of university agents, there prevails a systematical though
secret opposition to the application of the nascent system.
M. de Falloux himself had frequently to encounter this
bitter feeling of hostilit^r to his designs during his short-
lived but useful administration; and since he resigned
office, his successors have all, more or less, manifestly
yielded to the suggestions of their official advisers. This
is very apparent m the host of restrictive regulations which
are constantly issuing from the bureaux, with a view, one
would imagine, of crippling the new-born infant in its
cradle. The University seems determined upon rendering
the actual e^cperiment abortive ; so far indeed have things
gone in this way, that one of the most distinguished and
practical men in France wrote up lately to a member of
the Comitede V Enseignement Libre : *' I consider the law
as completely buried under the huge heap of ministerial
regulations with which it is clogged. One might say that the
law has been literally killed.^' Though there may be some
little exaggeration in this, still it becomes the evident duty
of the committee, to balk this pernicious tendency at its
very origin ; and, thank God, we may trust to the^ energy
of M. de Montalembert and his friends to gain their end.

The above facts are certainly not the result of the law
itself, but arise rather from its natural and obstinate oppo-
nents ; however, it is but fair to show what are its real
deficiencies, as they form the main ground of the opposition
it has had to encounter from many Catholics. In this we
cannot do better than follow the statements of the Bishop
of Langres, in a publication bearing the title of '* Truth as
to the Law on Instruction.^^ {La Verite sur la Loi de
r Enseignement)

According to the venerable bishop, the State still pre-
serves by far too great an influence. Though the Univer-
sity could not be annihilated, no one can consider it other-
wise than as an enemy to the Church ; and, therefore, it
would have been requisite to deprive that body both of its

Eower and sway over education. This, however, has not
een done, for the University maintains her ground in
every direction ; within the superior council, within the
provincial academies, within the very sphere of primary
instruction, thi-ough her different agents. Again, the

^^.

118 Public Instruction in France [Sept

State is represented within the superior council by a per-
manent section of members, all belonging to the Univer-
sity, who alone receive salaries, who alone are constantly
at work, who alone are thoroughly versed in the wear and
tear of business, who alone are entrusted with the execu-
tive part of the law, and thus are sure of gaining, in the
long run, a monopolising ascendancy.

Secondly, had the prescriptions of the Constitution been
followed, it would have been requisite to use the word
surveillance, instead of inspection, to characterize the
interference of the State in scnools, either public or private.
But the latter expression having been adopted, it remains
to ascertain how far this inspection may become fatal to
liberty.

The law states, that morality, health, the^ constituti/mt
and the laws are the objects of the above inspection.
The Bishop attacks the vagueness of these expressions.
For instance, is a sceptical system of philosophy to be
included within the term of morals as well as revelation ?
Under pretence of health, (hygiene,) may not likewise a

free establishment be subjected to such alterations as will
render competition altogether impossible? Another
instance occurs :— The head master of a school is aware
that an inspector is about to report upon his institution ;
will not this induce hini to court the inspector's good will,
by giving to the education of his pupils a tendency much
less truly Catholic than might be desirable ? And if the
inspector's visits are frequent, as must necessarily be the
case, will he not thus exert an almost irresistible pressure
over the school ? The Bishop of Langres considers this
as one of the great faults of the law, and particularly when
one remembers that the inspectors are named by the min-
ister, the natural representative of pohtical parties, and not
by one of the local councils as he would nave deemed it
expedient.

Mgr. Parisis then puts the question: What was the
true motive which induced the law-giver to establish such
a numerous army of inspectors ? His answer explains the
whole spirit of the law, and, therefore, is well worth
quoting more fully

** There is no ill will," sajs he, " in regard to the Clergy among
the men who framed and supported the bill. Whether the fe6liii|^
may one day ro-appear, is a thing we leave to the secrets of ProTU

185 1.] under the New Law. Il9

dence ; but that it does not at present exist at the bottom of their
souls, is a fact which we can affirm, and this assertion is the result
of our deep conviction and observation.

" As to suspicion, no — there is none against us ; but it does
exist against the condition of the country, oh yes — indeed there
it does exist, and that suspicion breathes through the whole
operation.

*• We have been told, and told a hundred times : —

*' No, — Liberty is not to be feared in your hands, but we cannot
give it unbounded to you^ witliout granting it equally to others who
do not deserve it, and would make of that liberty a use most
baneful to society. You see it your own selves ; the enemies of
order are numerous ; they threaten the whole world with a catas-
trophe which would, perhaps, be unparallelled in the annals of
mankind ; and we are aware that in every condition among these
enemies, there are teachers of jouth, or men whose duty it is
to form the rising generations for good, but who, on the contrary,
direct them towards evil.

" Well now, you, the priests — you, the apostles of virtue and
truth — ^you are bound to wish no less than we do the destruction of
such a shocking evil. Help us to avert this scourge, to turn away
this mortal poison from the lips of those children so dear to your
hearts. And, as we can do so only by general measures, apparently
destined to bear upon you, though in reality they are not, allow
us to add new strength to the organization of that vigilance which
has become more than ever the sacred duty of every statesman.*'

Such is the plan which was set forth in order to justify
the enthralments which are still evident in the new sys-
tem, and most certainly the Bishop of Langres has, by no
means, lessened their weight and value. This weight must
have been great, indeed, to induce him to vote, notwith-
standing, for the law ; for after all, in his publication, he
sums up likewise the advantages accruing from the
measure, and evidently leans in favour of its adoption.
Such a tendency in a prelate so truly conscientious in the
fulfilment of his duties, and so prudent in the direction of
worldly affairs, is very remarkable indeed. And if this be
the case, is it astonishing that the Holy See should have
given its approbation to a bill which does away with an
enormous quantity of evil, though it neither can nor does
profess to remove all ?

Were not the subject of such high interest to every
Catholic reader, we should apolog:ize for the length of the
present article. But there are things which require to be
exposed at ^U length, and in the present case the view of

120 Public Instruction in Ffance [Sept

the enormous difficulties, besides the bad consequences
which have attended the French system of centralization
and government influence over public education, may be,
by no means, unprofitable to Englishmen under actual cir-
cumstances. France has been punished, through a most
tremendous revolution, for all her previous dehnquencies
and her infidelity. Providence has been obliged, as one
of her statesmen lately said, to take the government of the
nation into its own hands ; but how long can this continue,
or is it to be expected that it should continue ? In events
like these we may read a lesson of what awaits ourselves,
should we sufier secular instruction to take the lead of
religious education ; wore we to allow a system of govern-
ment indifference to supersede the dictates of Christian
revelation ; ere long, revolution would likewise stare us in
the face.

Again, it must be remembered, that in the midst of the
universal revolutionary earthquake, God had previously
prepared for France a whole generation of truly Catholic
patriots and statesmen, who came forth in the hour of need,
facing, by turns, with their impassioned eloquence, with
their personal intrepidity, with their judicious measures,
the whole army of anarchists. But once more we say that
resources like these are not always forthcoming, and mad,
indeed, would be those who could reckon upon them.

Thus, as far as we can judge of the whole, the new law
has wrought great ameliorations, and may give rise to others
still more important, as the signs of the times are in favour
of religion. The reader has already seen the immediate
effects of the above measure upon schools in general ; but
another circumstance is well worth observing. The French
clergy seems roused to a deep sense of its present duties ;
it leaves no stone unturned in order to meet the exigencies
of the moment, and to bring in new reapers for the un-
expected harvest. Ecclesiastical normal schools are in
the way of being established in several seminaries, to
prepare young professors for secondary colleges. The
archiepiscopal institution, at the Carmes, in Paris,
begins to attract great attention. The piety of the
students, together with their literary accomplishments,
form a high contrast with the spirit of the infidel normal
school belonging to the university. This is, of course, fair
play, as many an official examinator is obliged to admit.

The religious press is likewise teeming with productions

1 85 1 .] under the New Law, 1 2 1

upon the s«ime subject. Mgr. Dupanloup has lately pub-
lished a work upon education, which has elicited universal
admiration for its sound principles and attic elegance of
taste, A?hilst another clergyman has also come.forth with a
very spirited brochure, in which he offers to the public his
Ideas upon Education, ideas which are the result of long-
earned experience. On the other hand, popular instruc-
tion is not forgotten. Several laymen of talent, among
whom figures M. Michel, an old friend of the celebrated
Father Girard, of Friburg, in Switzerland, have under-
taken to publish a monthly periodical, for the instruction
of the country schoolmasters. The seven first numbers are
full of excellent advice on primary tuition in every direc-
tion, and throughout the whole there breathes a genuine
Catholic spirit. The Education — such is the title of this
review — seems destined to do great service to the cause,
for one may say with truth, that not one single periodical
of the kind existed in France. All other journals belong-
ing to this class are merely the speculations of booksellers,
more or less dependant on the university. Besides, the
price of subscription is so low, as to place it at the disposal
of all schoolmasters if they please.

We are, therefore, justified in repeating that the new
law has generally answered the expectations of those who
proposed and defended it. Notwithstanding all its deficien-
cies, it has put an end to many prejudices in regard to
religion ; it has taken advantage of the favourable impres-
sions of the day ; it has overthrown a great portion of that
despotic sway which had hitherto proved so baneful to
France; it has enabled new and free establishments to
arise, that would otherwise have been utterly impossible ;
it has given birth to a system destined henceforth to grow
and prosper, if the French Catholics take care of them-
selves; it has finally called forth a spirit of competition
with the university, that no one could now extinguish, and
thus prepared for another generation a ground upon which
it may take a firm stand and achieve still greater, still better
things. AH this is certainly something substantial, some-
thing practical, and gratitude is due to those who have
done so much for their country, with such insignificant
means in their hands, nay, with such a warm opposition
against them. That they may be rewarded with gratitude,
ought to be the wish of every true Catholic, and is certain-
ly the sincere desire of the present writer.

122 Protestant Ideas of tJie Confessional. — [Sepb

Art. V. — Cases of Conscience, or Lessons of MoralUy, For tbo uw
of the Laity ; extracted from the Moral Theology of the Romjsh
Church. Br Pascal the Younger. London : Bos worth, 1851.

THIS miserable production, miserable alike in tendency,
in spirit, and in execution, has, at any rate, the advan-
tage, in the eyes of a Catholic, that it carries its refutation
in its very title. Its title, in fact, is a faithful representa-
tion of its argument, and that argument, besides the many
incidental flaws by which it is vitiated, is from beginnioff
to end a fallacy ; the common fallacy, we will add, of ail
writers who have attempted to implicate in the charge of
laxity, the moral theology of the great Jesuit school. And
before entering upon the exposure of the present work in
detail, we shall endeavour, with as little of theological
technicality as possible, to give our readers an idea ot this
7rpu)7ov yfrevBos, this elementary false assumption which runs
through all the popular attacks upon the Confessional, and
of which even Cfatholics themselves, especially those of the
Gallican opinions, have not been always careful to keep
themselves clear.

It appears, then, to be taken for granted by these objec-
tors, that " Cases of Conscience'' and ** Lessons of Mora-
lity," are one and the same thing. The^ confound, that
is, the moral theology of the Church, which is altogether
remedial of sin already committed, with her moral teaching,
which is directed to the formation of character. It is
indeed wonderful, (unless the explanation of the fact be
sought in wilful oversight,) that they should so entirely
forget the frequency with which our ordinary spiritual
writers, as well as our theologians, describe a confessor
under the name of a ** physician." It is equally strange,
that men professing a reverence for the text of Scripture,
should wholly ignore the words of our Blessed Lord Him-
self: " They that arc sound need not a physician, but they
that are sick : I came not to call the just, but sinners to
penance." Our readei'S will better understand the distinc-
tion we mean to express, if we put a couple of parallel cases,
drawn from the practice of the world.

1831.] " Pascal the Younger:' 123

Our first analogy shall be derived from the quarter to
which both the Gospel and the Church direct us to look for
the illustration of the priests* office — we mean the depart-
ment of medical science and practice. A physician, in the
words of our Lord Himself just quoted, is not for the sound
but for the sick and the sickly. A healthy man indeed
may ^o to his doctor for direction, but this is a distinct
and special department of a physician's duty. Medical
treatises are but incidentally concerned with it ; ih&iT object
is to suggest methods, not for the preservation of health,
but for the alleviation of disease. It is just the same in
the case of our moral theology, the end of which is, the
restoration of the penitent from the state of sin into which
he has unhappily fallen, to the state of grace which he has
forfeited. Sin, (in the language again of Holy Scripture,)
is the " disease,'' the state of grace is the condition of
spiritual health, and the sacrament of penance is the
ordained means of recovery. The Confessor, like the phy-
sician, is bound by the obligations of his office to get his
patient out of trouble as well as he can ; and treatises of
moral theology are his guides as to the most approved
method of doing his work. But as the physician has
bodily health for the subject matter of his profession, so ^
priest has spiritual health for that of his vocation, (so far as
men are the objects of it,) and as the physician, therefore,
is at times a counsellor of the sound, to prevent their becom-
ing ill, a confessor is also a director of the spiritually
healthy, so that they may be secured from a fall. Now
the treatises which he consults, in his character of
confessor, and which, it seems, have found their way into
the hands of persons, (Hke our author,) for whom they were
never intended, are mainly occupied with the circum-
stances of disease ; " cases" as they are rightly called.
Where they touch upon the condition of the healthy, it is in
the way of a digression, or rather, a special notice. Thus,
St. Alphonso, for example, has his practical instructions
for directors of souls, in a form quite distinct from his
moral theology ; they belong, in fact, to a diflFerent branch
of the science, called the '* ascetic ;" and it is as ridiculous
to mix up the two lines of study as it would be to con-
found a book of culinary recipes with one of medical pre-
scriptions. We are serious when we say, that if a
gentleman in a good state of health were to propose
sustaining himself upon beef tea and barley water, instead

124 Protestant Ideas oftlie Con/essionaL — [Sept

of roast rauttoii and port wine, he would not make a greater
mistake than would the Catholic who should seek for spiri-
tual direction in the pages of Busembaum, or any other
work of the kind.

To dwell a moment longer upon this same comparison.
The great principle upon which the s^jiritual, like the
bodily physician has to shape his course, is that of accom-
modation to circumstances. He has his particular patient
to ijrescribe for, and he will prescribe accordingly ; but that
patient has this in common with all patients, that he
requires a cautious as well as a gentle and considerate
treatment. Besides his specific symptoms, he has the
characteristic of all sick people as such, that he is delicate
and sensitive. Hence his physician must provide, not for
what he himself might desire, but for what his patient can
bear. But his object, above all, must be that of hindering
despondency. In the pursuit of this object, he will prac-
tice a prudent reserve m speaking to his patient ; he will
make the best even of serious disease, not ifrom any love of
dissembling, still less any habitual untruthfulness, but
simply in pursuit of his object, which is to lighten, not to
aggravate, to heal and not to wound. A pretty kind of
doctor would he be, who should go about frightening his
patients in their first respite after danger, and ere they
were well out of it, by telling them in their feeble state, all
which he would say of their maladies to their friends in
health, or to themselves when recovered ! When he sees •
them too easily elated, ready to presume upon a momen-
tary amendment, or to calculate upon years when he
knows their days, and perhaps their hours, to benumbered,
then cautiously indeed, and kindly, but still firmly, he
advises them of their danger, or at least moderates their
too sanguine hopes. But in a case where calmness and
confidence are the very conditions of recovery, to speak to
a sick man of his disease, after the fact, in the same terms
in which you would speak to a sound man of the same
disease before it, would be a course of action for which
worldly men would very soon find a suitable, and that no
very complimentary description, were it to be practised in
regard to themselves and their families.

The penitent, moreover, has a claim upon his confessor
for tenderness, which is peculiar to himself. A sick man
does no violence to his natural feelings in having recourse
to his physician ; on the contrary, he acts in obedience to

1851.1 " Pascal the Younger:' 1 25

them. He feels his malady, which all sinners mihappily
do not. And even when sinners are moved by the prompt-
ings of divine grace, to go to a Confessor, and disburden
their consciences, what a victory must they not gain over
their self-love ! They may, if they please, keep their secret
to themselves, so that even their best friends shall not
know of it. Unlike the man attacked with illness, they
have neither natural inclination within, nor kind friends
without, to force them on using remedies. They may stay
away from confession if they please, but they actually pre-
fer, for their souls' health, to do a thing most repulsive to
their natural self-love. Are such the persons for a sinner
like themselves to frighten and discourage ? Is it for him
to exaggerate, or even to exhibit in formal shape, the sin
which, as it is, appals them by its hideous appearance ?
Does not human kindliness, as well as sacerdotal duty,
suggest to a confessor the course of gentleness and moder-
ation ? And has not his Lord warned him against bruising
the broken reed and quenching the smouldering flax?
We repeat, it is one thing to warn from mortal sin as
a danger, quite another to deal with it as a fact ; and it
would be just as unchristian to use in the confessional the
language of the pulpit, as to tell men whom we wish to
mamtain in innocence, of all the excuses which might be
made for them if unhappily they should fall into sin.

It may be said, indeed, that a sin is as much a sin at
one time as at another, and that the course we are now
advocating is favourable to hypocrisy and falsehood.^ But
how different is the fact! The preacher, or spiritual
director, speaks of sin in the abstract, as hateful to God
and destructive of the soul. The confessor, on the con-
trary, who deals^ with sin as a fact, has to view
it in connexion with all its circumstances in the par-
ticular case ; such as the amount of knowledge or deliber-
ation with which it was committed, and the degree of com-
pleteness to which it was carried ; its place in the series of
which it is one ; its relation to the temperament and situ-
ation of the penitent, &c. It will be hard, indeed, if there
be no extenuating circumstances in the particular instance ;
one fact to move compassion and suggest tenderness there
must always be — the fact of the confession itself. A peni-
tent always deserves mercy, but a hearer does not even
claim it.

Hence it is that so great a part of moral theology con-

]26 Protestant Idecis of the Confessional, — [Sejt

sists in framing excuses for sinners. The consideration of
favourable circumstances in every variety of form, or in
their effect, whether upon the intention of the agent, or
the character of the act ; the possibility of reducing the
sin to some less aggravated class of transgressions, or of
accounting for it, upon some indulgent hypothesis ; the
admissibility, without compromise, of some lenient con-
struction, or the adoption of some moderate opinion of a
divine of weight, upon which the confessor, desiring to be
lenient, might safely act — these and the like are topics
which receive so prominent a place in our authorized
treatises on confession, that it is no wonder if hasty
observers should carry away from the perusal of them,
notions at variance with the strictness of Catholic morality,
though a wonder it is that men of credit should persevere
in misrepresentations which have been so often and so com-
pletely exposed. The consolation however is, that the
servant is not greater than his Lord, and that if our
Divine Master was called the Friend of sinners, it is no
reproach to His priests to be thought lax and unscrupulous.
The principle of indulgence upon which our most approved
decisions in moral theology are based, is, after all no other
than that upon which our blessed Redeemer absolved the
woman t^iken in adultery, and her, who merited to have
many sins forgiven by reason of her much love.

The other parallel by which we shall illustrate the differ-
ence between the duties of a teacher and confessor, shall
be found in the practice of human tribunals. Who wotdd
ever think of mistaking the principles upon which a judge
or jury decides the case of a criminal, for those which
should guide a moralist in refonning a nation ? Let ns
suppose a just judge, or an impartial jury, having to deal
with a prisoner who pleads guilty, and who appears before
them under the disadvantage of no antecedent conviction,
and no personal blemish. Surely they will start with a
bias in his favour; a bias warranted not merely Ir^his
previously unsullied reputation, but by the fact of his
throwing himself upon mercy, when he might possibly have
evaded justice. If the stern requirements of the law will
not allow them to pronounce in his favour, still what efforts
will they spare, to what harmless expedients will they not
have recourse, in order that they may temper the effect of
a verdict which they cannot avoid, and mitigate a penidly
which they cannot but inflict ! What weight, nay what

1 85 1.] « Pascal the Younger:^ 1 27

preponderance, ^ will they not ^ give to every favourable
feature, to constitutional infirmity, to the strength of temp-
tation, to the influence of example ! How anxious will
they be to wrest each doubtful precedent, to determine
each faltering authority, towards the side of clemency ! how
much less fearful, if their way be not clear before them,
of error in an abstract opinion on the side of indulgence,
than of the misapplication of a true one on the side of
rigour ! Yet the office of a Confessor, as every phrase
denoting or referring to it expresses, is strictly and
essentially judicial.

We have thus attempted to demonstrate by a recourse
to no fanciful analogies, but to those to which the very defi-
nition of the coiifessorial office directs us, the nature of the
duty which a confessor, (qud confessor} has to perform, and
the character of the materials upon which he has to draw
for his decisions. And it will be at once apparent how
unfair it is to confound the adjudications of " cases'* with
the delivery of *' lessons ;'] or in other words, the office of a
confessor, (which is entirely passive,) with the positive
duties of a preacher or director. The distinction indeed is
so obvious, and so well understood hy all Catholics, that
we should have to apologize for inflicting upon our readers
an elaborate proof of it, were it not that educated men have
been found to pin their faith upon books like that before us,
in which this distinction is not so much as imagined.
This writer, whoever he may be, that takes upon
himself to instruct the world on the subject of our theology,
under a name which proves that he claims a relationship
of object with the celebrated author of the " Lettres Pro-
vin^jiales,'* seems to have formed somewhat of the fol-
lowing conception of our sacerdotal practice. He seems
to think that our priests, among their many duties, have
this office in particular ; that they have certain hours in
the day during which they receive all the "loose fish'* in
their parishes, who come to them for instruction as to the
most approved manner of committing sin, so as to gain the
largest amount of personal gratification with the least
sacrifice of ecclesiastical standing. The nice distinctions
which our theologians draw between sins that destroy
and such as only wound the soul, (for instance,) are appa-
rently believed by this gentleman to be devised for the
special purpose of enabling young Mr. A. to murder his
enemy witn only a venial quantity of deliberation, or Lady

128 Protestant Ideas of the Confesmnal, — [Sept

B. to {>lay her cards so neatly as to commit a decided ^auo;
pas without forfeiting the good opinion of her spiritual
adviser. Such an imagination, we confidently aver, is not
a whit less ludicrous than would be that of supposing all
the vagabonds in Hampshire to subscribe, in order to p:et
Mr. Justice Coleridge to go down to some central spot in
the county, that they might repair into his presence, and
consult him as to the approved method of housebreaking,
or other such practices, so as to come off with the least
quantity of punishment at the next ensuing Winchester
Assizes. The law, they might say, is exact in defining
the difference between murder, manslaughter, and homi-
cide ; between robbery and petty larceny ; between crim-
inal assaults and venial: misdemeanors. We come to your
Lordship, as to a judge learned in the law, and to you
rather than to another, because you will be the verv judge
at whose tribunal we shall have to appear, and who wDl
direct the jury to their verdict ; your own labours will be
lightened by a previous knowledge of the cases which will
come before you, and the character of our county will
suffer should those cases be of an unnecessarily aggravated
hue. With the benefit of your instructions, and under the
sanction of your authority, we shall commit our intended
crimes in the most scientific manner, and with all the
security which the case admits. Guarded by an exact
knowledge of the law from the danger of blind excitement,
and protected by your authoritative sympathjr against the
possibility of a crushing verdict, we shall gratify our wishes
so cautiously, and transgress the law so neatly, that
when the time of trial arrives, you will be rather moved to
admire us as models of dexterity, than led to punish us as
ungainly criminals ; and so regard us less as the victims of
your judicial severity, than as the monuments of your le^sJ
success. While neighbouring cities are infested wiih
crime, and your learned brothers are burdened widi beaw
cases, Winchester shall have the distinction of a light cal-
endar, and all but a virgin assize. The hangman may
take his vacation, and the turnkeys may kick their heels ;
murders here shall melt into misdemeanours, seductions
subside into gallantries ; for surely a judge will not be so
uncourteous as to sum up to the disadvantage of those who
have transgressed in conformity to his instructions, or
overlook in each case the extenuating circumstances, which
are the result of his own advice.

1851.] " Pascal the Younger:' 129

• Now this proceeding, which looks so grotesque, is liter-
ally, and without any exaggeration, that which " Pascal
the Younger" supposes to have place in the Kingdom of
Christ on earth. This credulous individual has actually
been deluded into believing that such a scene as the fol-
lowing is the representation of a fact not unusual in the
Catholic Church.

" Father OTlannigan keeps the conscience of two lords, a score
of squires, and some three thousand of her Majestj's supposed lieges
in the parish of Ballinadrum. * Father O'Flannigan, Mat D'Arcey
won't hear a word about fighting. He swears by all the saints its
a horse-whipping he'll give me the first time we meet. Father
O'Flannigan, what's to be done with a clear conscience V *IC8 not a
thing I should like to advise^ Mr. O'Shaugnessy, but it is quite in the
line of your duty to shoot him: * By — , Father O'Flannigan, it is just
what I have been satisfied of all the while, and I have challenged
him three times, besides once on the floor of the House I* * You
misunderstand me, Mr. O'Shaugnessy ; sendiDg a challenge is a
delicate question in morals, upon which I understand from yourself
ve were not now to touch. This is a case of defence against
aggression ; not of life, indeed, but of honour, honum prcBstantius,
Mr. O'Shaugnessy; and now we shall see St. Liguori. Here it is,
chapter and verse : ' For a mere contumely, for example, an hon-
ourable gentleman is told that he lies; it is not allowable to put the
offender to death, for there is another way of wiping off that, and
one sanctioned by custom ; but the thing is quite different if one
should offer to lay a whip or the palm of his hand on any par-
ticularly honourable gentleman, and there is no other way to avert
it.* Diana, — not the heathen divinity, Mr. O'Shaugnessy, but one
of the great lights of the Church, — Diana, Lessius^ Hurtado, and
twelve other doctors, teach that it is lawful to slay the aggressor on
the spot. Thtfre is no sinning in such company ; and though
holy Liguori has found out a certain Sjlvio, who stands by himself
in his singular opinion, who says that it is very rarely that this
opinion should be put into practice, his own (the Saint's) opinion
is quite clear,^ ou the side of authority, and I hope, Mr. O'Shaugnes-
sy, you are provided with one of the patent revolvers: " ** That day
week," continues the narrative, ** Father O'Flannigan celebrated a
solemn requiem Mass, for the repose of the soul of poor Mat D'Arcey,
who died of a gun-shot wound, inflicted by some person or persous
unknown ! ''—pp. 21—22.

* Vid. infra.
VOL. XXXI.— No. LXI. 9

IS*^ Protestant Ideas of the ConfessionaL-^ [Sept

We must inflict one more specimen of this trash upon
our readers, in order to bear out our assertion :

" St. Liguori's next practical commontator is < square* Father
Kilmany, living in what is very properly called one of the ' dis-
turbed districts/ Of his ' penitents' there are now three seated on
a bench in the passage, waiting as patiently as any Italian bom
and bred to 'far Tanticamera/ One by one they are let into the
sanctum of the Father's study. * Your Reverence,' says Phelim
McLaughlin, squeezing his indescribable head-gear into ' no shape
at all,' please your Reverence, Lord Skelter 's 'gentleman' has lust
got down at the Star and Garter, and before three days it will be
all over with most of us. It is no use to talk of defence, for we
have not the means. But what I'm thinking of, your Reverence, is
to ' anticipate him.' ' You must mind what you are after, Phelim
McLaughlin,' says Father Kilmany, ' by the law of God, his life is
a forfeit ;' and after a stirring outburst against the curse of bad
landlords and bad agents, he ends by assuring Phelim, on Lignori's
authoritv, that, barring the risk, there is nothing to hinder his 'anti*
cipating the gentleman with a ball or a slug."* — pp. 25 — ^26.

It is, we think, sufficiently plain from these quotations,
that the author confounds the office of confessor with that
of teacher. But if any doubt upon the point still remains,
the following passage is of a nature to remove it. Sum-
ming up the evils of the system upon which he supposes
the Church to act, the author observes :

" To be a member of a cabinet or of any corporate body, is a sao
snare for individual conscience. To bo a corporate booy oneself,
(a Bishop, for instance,) often proves still more so. But what moifi
the case bo where the great polity in which priest and people are
alike incorporated, avowedly takes tlie charge and responsibility of
all consciences, and, by a sort of moral communion, makes the ven*
lowest level the univeisal standard V — p. 28.

This charge then which we bring against the author, of
totally mistaking the o'bject of the Confessional, (for a
*' charge" we must call it, considering the serious moral
fault which such a blunder implies,) would hold good, even
supposing that his statements were as fair, and his citations
as accurate, as wo expect to prove them the contrary.
Let it be remembered, then, that the work of St. AlphonsOj

Vid. infra.

1851.] « Pascal the Younger:' 131

upon which these statements are founded, is in six octavo
volumes, which ''Pascal the Younger'' undertakes to repre-
sent in the foot-notes of a pamphlet of sixty-four pages, not
half of which is directly occupied with the subject of Moral
Theology. To this fact it should be added, that the work
of the saint, from its nature, is one which is little likely to fall
into the hands of ordinary readers, and still less likely to be
understood by them. We venture to say that there is no
subject in the world but one affecting the Catholic Church,
in which educated men would not see through the unfair-
ness of founding a judgment of a work like that we have
described upon a few extracts, even were these extracts
fairly made and rightly translated. That in any case they
could form even a plausible, and much less a fair specimen
of the theology of St. Alphonso, we entirely deny. But in
point of fact, they are not even correctly made, and the
errors both of quotation and translation which they exhibit
are, we hesitate not to say, simply disgraceful in a case where
the charge is so sweeping and the inaccuracy so difficult to
prove. Even the Catholic laity, to say nothing of Protes-
tants, have no access to the work of St. Alphonso, for they
are far too well instructed in their duty to exercise an idle,
and it may be, even a vicious curiosity, upon a subject with
which, as a body, they have no concern. Our priests again,
are far too busily engaged, as a general rule, to enter upon
the office of controversialists, and many of them, we can well
understand, might treat a publication like that before us as
below their notice. It is solely because we happen to know
that even excellent Catholics have been distressed by^ this
book that we yield our own judgment of its pretensions,
upon which we should have left it to fall by itself. Yet, at
last, we have no hope of covering by our notice of it, the
ground to which its influence has probably extended; still
fess of reaching the particular class of readers into whose
hands it will have fallen. While it is contributing to swell
the current of the great ^^ Protestant tradition,'' and is the
parent of a swarm of calumnies which will outlive itself,
and become themselves the source of future misrepresent-
ations, our comments on it, (be they worth more or less,)
will be meeting eyes which never lighted upon the subject
of them, and possibly introduce the work itself into quar-
ters as yet unconscious of it. This is an inconvenience ;
but one which is surely not sufficient to compensate for the

132 Protestant Ideas of the Cov/essionaU — [Sept.

duty of removing a scandal out of a weak brother's way, or
of curing the distress of one faithful son of Holy Church.

From the quotations already made, the reader will have
gathered that the object of this author is to embody the
substance, or supposed substance, of St. Alphonso's doc-
trine upon certain points, in the form of conversations
between the Priest and certain of his penitents, held, whe-
ther in the confessional or in the Priest's private apart-
ment. The specimens we have given will not, perhaps,
have disposed the reader to desire much more of the same
kind ; and we must therefore attempt, at whatever sacrifice
of fulness, to compress these dialogues into a form which
we hope and believe will involve no unfairness towards the
writer under review.

One of the cases runs as follows. A servant claims to
take secret compensation for her sei*vices, which she
chooses to consider ill-paid. Her plea is, that she receives
but <£lO a-year wages, whereas Susan, next door, has JBI6
for the same work. And the Priest is made to allow her
claim. This decision is justified out of St. Alphonso,
who says, that servants do not commit sin who (all other
means failing,) have, upon the refusal of their master to
give them the just compensation, compensated theniselves
to the precise amount of the wages necessary for their sus-
tenance, or for which they compacted. His words are,
" Famuli non peccant si sustentationem vel mercedem
justam domino negante, utantur compensatione occulta,
dummodo tamen alius modus non sit impetrandi, nee plus
accipiatur quam debet ur.^' (iv. 39.) Hereupon this writer
jumps at the conclusion, nowise grounded upon the words erf
the baint, that a Confessor may teach a servant-girl to paj
herself, out of her master's property, the difference between
her wages and those of a servant in another place, who hajh
pens to receive more, and this for all that appears, without
endeavouring to establish her claim in any other way. A
very little reflection will show the unfairness of the inference.
The master, in the case supposed by the Saint, is guilty of
a direct fraud in withholding from his servant her diie ;
and hence the servant has as much right to the difference
between the wages agreed upon and those actually paid, as
to the same amount if she had been robbed of it. All the
requisite conditions being supposed, she commits no more
sin by compensating herself to the exact amount, (if she do
no morej than if she were to take out of her master's

1851.] " Pascal the Younger:' 133

room her owii watch, or other article of her property,
which he might happen to have purloined. Here the
Church comes in aid of the Scripture maxim, *' The
labourer is worthy of his hire ;'' and defends the oppressed
against one of the worst forms of tyranny. St. Alphonso,
moreover, (let it be continually observed,) supposes the act
donCy and gives no warrant, as is plain, for teaching a ser-
vant, before the fact, to compensate herself according to her
own mode of rating her own services, and upon her assump-
tion, (without proof,) that other modes of obtaining justice
are impracticable. It will be answered by Englishmen that
this allowance of secret compensation is dangerous. But
here comes in the old difference between teaching and
deciding. St. Alphonso is determining the law, not writing
a sermon. Now, on what count can this servant be tried at
the bar of conscience, but that of injustice, and how can she
be condemned for that which is in fact the rectification of
an act of injustice ? That such a mode of compensation is
undesirable, and not to be advised, St. Alphonso shows,
by the limitations with which he guards his doc-
trine. The case supposed by Pascal the Younger,
is not that justified by St. Alphonso, but that con-
demned by Innocent XL in the following proposition.
** Famuli ac famula) domestica) possunt occulte heris suis
subripere ad compensandam operam suam quam majorem
judicant salario quod recipiunt." It is just the way with
these popular speakers, and even writers, (whose condem-
nation will be greater,) to overlook the minute distinc-
tions which separate innocence from guilt. But it is for
him who administers justice with mercy, to weigh and
act upon them.

St. Alphonso, like all our great writers, is apt to draw
a marked line between breaches of the moral, and breaches
of a mere positive law. Were it fitting to transfer to our

pages his full doctrine, for example, on the subject of the
sixth and ninth (in the Protestant decalogue the seventh and
tenth) Commandments, it would speedily appear on which
side, the Catholic or the Protestant, the laxer notions pre-
vail as to breaches of the great law of purity. It would be
found how easily sins of thought in that, as well as other
matter, to which Protestants are surely not less exposed
than other men, may undermine, and at length destroy, the
foundations of divine life in the soul; nay, how even one
such sin may debar a Christian from heaven ; and how,

134 Protestant Ideas of the ConfessionaL — [Sept

again, the same great law niay be fatally violated by
actions which are considered in the world to be fully jus-
tified by circumstances, or by the relation in which the
{parties are placed towards one another. These, and the
ike to these, are (not lessons taught, but) facts implied in
the treatises of moral theology ; although, to judge of
these treatises by Protestant exhibitions of them, one would
fancy that they were mainly occupied in devising methods
for the suggestion of evil to innocent minds, or iu con-
structing cases of guilt altogether beyond (as if that were
possible^ the actual range of human iniquity. Now upon
these subjects, St. Alphonso, lax as he is represented, is
strict to a degree which renders the inflexible application
of his principles exceedingly difficult here in England, apt
though we be to boast of our superior morality in the compa-
rison with Catholic countries. On the other hand, to apply
any but a most easy and pliant rule to the interpretation
oi positive laws, (such as that which enjoins fasting and
abstinence,) would be to go the direct way of justifying the
VQvy charge which Protestants so li'eely bring against us,
of substituting formal for spiritual religion. Faithful to
Him who says, '^ I will have mercy, and not sacrifice,'' the
Church sanctions the practice of the utmost leniency and
forbearance towards those who, whether by health or other
such circumstances, are prevented from complying with her
rules in external matters. As to fasting, indeed, its use is
l3ss in promoting the S|)irit of mortification, than in exer-
cising the habit of obedience ; hence the end of the institu-
tion is not defeated, often, indeed, it is furthered, by a sus-
pension of the practice which it enjoins. A^ priest is^ not
bound to go minutely into the reasons for which a penitent
asks to be dispensed from an observance which, while all
but indifferent in itself, may so easily conflict with duties
%yhich are of natural and eternal obligation. To preserve
life, (and health, as tending to it,) is one such duty ; to
hinder breaches of charity, or domestic peace, is another.
Now it is evident from the very nature of such circum-
stances,^ that a confessor is very much in the haiids^ of
the applicant for a dispensation, and must act in the spirit
of confidence and generous dealing. His mistakes, if
voluntary, and the effect neither of culpable ignorance nor
of a worldly mind, will never, he knows, be imputed to
him.

We have made these remarks in introduction of a stoiy

1851.] '^ Pascal the Younger/^ 135

which is brought m the work before us, to illustrate the
charge of laxity in the matter of ecclesiastical dispensa-
tions. A lady is supposed to ask for leave to eat meat on
fasting and abstinence daj'S, on the ground that a meagre
diet spoils her appearance, and makes her disagreeable to
her husband, and her confessor is supposed to admit her

f)lea upon the authority of St. Alphonso, who gives excel-
ent reasons why it is better that such a law should be
relaxed, than the peace of married life disturbed, and its
ends defeated.

We shall not be expected to follow this writer into the
examination of all the cases which he selects for discus-
sion, especially when it is understood that the class of
subjects upon which St. Alphonso never touches without
obvious pain of a most acute kind, and upon which he does
not even enter without an apology, is precisely that which
supplies the most numerous and the most effective points
of attack to critics such as Pascal the Younger, and that
the same considerations which lead theologians to
approach such subjects with reluctance, should much more
compel reviewers to abstain from enlarging upon them.
In one respect, *' Pascal, the Younger'' is not unlike other
writers of the same class, in that he has contrived, in his
own pages, to commit material violations of that very law
of delicacjr which he is seeking to^ vindicate. We might
contrast, m illustration, the tone in which he treats the
subject of female dress, compared with that of the Saint,
whose decision he charges with laxity, because it stops
short of declaring that a lady who adops the style of dress
common in the high society of England, commits " mor-
tal'* sin, i.e., puts herself, ipso facto, in the state of dam-
nation; and this, too, after a protest so solemn as the
following, against the very misconstruction with which his
words have met. " Quum ego munus concionatoris gessi,
pluries etiara hunc perniciosum usum fortiter conatus sum
exprobrare." We wonder how many of the Protestant
clergy can say the same. And this is he, of whom a
writer of their communion can bring himself to slander as
a *' loose priest," nay, as a ^' holy pander !" May he him-
self be judged at the great Day by another measure than
that which he deals out to his neighbour !

And here we must not forget to notice his ignorance of
the nature of a venial sin. Of the practice of those females
who dress loosely without evil intention, and with the view of

13(J Protestant Ideas of the Confessional. — tSept.

pleasing where they are bound in duty to please, St. Alphonso
says, "nuUo jure naturali, divino aut bumano, saltern ad
mortale obligante, vetatur." This is translated in the
work under review, (p. 32.) " no natural law, human or
divine, at least that is ohligatoryJ^ The important words
*' ad mortale, ''are omitted. Now a writer so free in his
judgments of our theology, ought to know that a confessor
who, with his eyes open, should counsel his penitent to com-
mit a venial sin, would himself commit a mortal one.

We may observe that there are other instances of mis-
translation in the work, which bear the appearance rather
of ignorance than of malice, although of ignorance most
highly culpable in a writer who brings sweeping charges
against a whole body of men. For example, at i)age 19,
(note,) the exact meaning of the word *' reus'' is over-
looked in the application of the passage in which it occurs.
Again, (p, 23, note) the technical meaning of ** discrimen
iuculpatse tutelar," is evidently not understood. At page
31, (note) we have the words ^* hsec videtur positiva inductio,
sive ad peccatum cooperatio," (plain enough to any tyro
in Latin,) which has its English counterpart in the follow-
ing nonsense, (p. 32,)** this seems a positive induction
whether there is co-operation to siii." After such serious
inaccuracies, the reader will be prepared for a mode of
translation flowing and inexact even when not positively
erroneous, and this too in a subject where the whole force
of passages depends upon scientific precision.

And now recurring to the case of Father O'Fljyinigan,
and Mr. O'Shaugnessy, which the reader will find tn externa
in a former part of our article, let us take the following as
a specimen of this writer's accuracy. He says, it will be
observed, that the opinion of St. Alphonso is " quite clear,"
on the side of Lessuis, <kc., who excuses a man for taking
away the life of another who insults his honour, and
against Sylvio, who contends that this opinion is *^ most
rarely" to be carried into practice. Who would expect to
find, that, on the contrary, St. Alphonso is tuith Sylvio,
and against ^ the rest ? His words are, ** Sed in praxi
rarissime uti licet pro'.dictd opinion e, nam Sylvius recte
sic ait : etiamsi honor sit bonum pra3stantius quam divi-
tia3, AUT NULLUM AUT RARissiMUM arbitramur esse casum

2 no pro defensione solius honoris liccat Aggressorem inter-
cere." The latter part of this sentence the author before
us comprises under an et cetera ! ,

1 85 ! . ] " Pascal the Youvgerr 1 37

A similar piece of garbling occurs in the case before
cited, of Father Kilmauy and Phelim MaclaughHn. The
story, it will be observed, relates to the interpretation of
the law of selt-defence, and the question it determines on
the affirmative side is, whether under certain circumstan-
ces, a person may be executed for killing, by anticipation,
another, whom he knows to be prepared to kill him. Cer-
tain authors it appears, are of opinion, that the rule which
allows a man to defend his life by killing an actual aggres-
sor, allows him also to defend himself, by the same means,
against one who is prepared to attack him, supposing, of
course, that he acts not upon suspicion, however well
founded, but upon a moral certainty that his life will be
attacked. The author before us appears to quote this as
the opinion of St. Alphonso himself. Let us, then, hear
the words of the Saint, which ** Pascal the Younger" sup-
presses.

''His non obstantibus,'' (that is, notwithstanding, we
must suppose these authors to imply a moral certainty of
danger to life, and nothing short of it,) '^ censeo, secundam
sententiam,*' (the opinion in question) *'hac etiam distinc-
tione supposita,'' (i.e. the distinction between moral cer-
tainty, and mere suspicion or apprehension,) ^* vix in praxi
aliguem posse segui, propter hallucinationis periculum quod
in hujusmodi re adesse possit." ''Which opinion, even
after giving due weight to the distinction supposed, I
decidedly pronounce can hardly ever be admissible in prac-
tice, on account of the risk of hallucination incident to
such a subject. '* St. Alphonso will not go so far as to
assert, that in every conceivable case a person must be
determined to have sinned mortally, by taking away the
life of one whom he knew to have prepared the means of
death against himself; still, looking to the great risk of
misapprehension in such a case, he judges, that whatever
the theoretical value of the decision, it can hardly ever be
carried out in practice.

We have now, as we flatter ourselves, established some
claim to public confidence, when we assert that there is
not one of the cases set forth in this work of which we
could not satisfactorily dispose, if we had space and
leisure, and if we could believe that our readers would
have patience for the discussion. Instead, then, of going
through all the cases which this writer produces, we shall
content ourselves with throwing out certain leading con-

133 Protestant Ideas of the Confessional. — [Sept

siderations, which if applied to them in detail, would be
found to explain whatever has, prima facie, an imsatis*
factory appe.arance. For our ooject, we repeat, is not so
much to satisfy Protestants, as to remove any distress
which pious Catholics might suffer, under the dread of
that being unanswerable, which their own experience or
line of reading docs not enable them at the moment to
refute.

It must then be borne in mind, first, ^ that even St.
Alphonso, though certainly a safe, is not an infallible guide,
the gift of^ infallibility not being guai'anteed to any indi-
vidual divine, on any subject, least of all on one where, as
in moral theology, truth depends upon the adjustment of a
balance of practical considerations. This alone is certain,
that a writer in whose favour the Apostolic See has so une-
quivocally pronounced, must be supposed to have committed
himself to no opinion at variance with essential morality,
and that no confessor can fall into anything worse than a
mere material error, by deciding in conformity to the judg-
ment of such an authority. But since St. Alphonso himsen,
without living much beyond the age of man, came to the
conclusion that some of his earlier judgments were mis-
taken, (which is the fact), it is possible, that had his life
been still further prolonged, the catalogue of " Questiones
reformata)'' which he has appended to the later editions of
his work, might have been enlarged; although, since
Almighty God, who directed him in all that he did for the
Church, did not permit such an event, we may piously
believe, that the work as it stands, with its actual correc-
tions, is a safe and sufficient guide. But objectors are
very apt to make St. Alphonso responsible for every
opinion advanced in the earlier editions of his Theology,
even for those which he has retracted in the later.

2. It is important to observe that propositions attri-
buted by Pascal the Younger, and others of his class,
to certain Popes, are propositions, not always sanctioned,
but often contrariwise condemned, by those Pontiff's.

3. And as we have all along insisted, it is one thing
to find excuses for conduct after the fact, and another
to counsel the same course before it. A Catholic teacher
points out the way of avoiding sin ; a confessor has (among
other things) to relieve a contrite spirit from the pressure
of a discouraging and unhealthy remorse.

4. Let those who criticise the decisions of the Church

1851.] '' Pascal tlie Youngerr 139

on moral questions, advert, for a moment, to the standard
of morality which prevails in the worlds and then, let
them recollect, that the Church has to deal with the world
as it is, and not as she would have it be. She teaches
according to the strictest standard, but she decides accord-
ing to the most equitable.

6. St. Alphonso formed his judgments upon the exhibi-
tion of human nature in a southern country. No one
pretends that he had a revelation upon the actual state of
society in England, nor does any prudent Catholic deny
that his rules admit of certain modifications applicable to
our own countr}'-. He had no conception, because he had
no experience, of the conventional morality of a Protestant
country; of the allowances, for instance, sanctioned or
tolerated, in pecuniary and commercial transactions, the
ti'icks of trade, the fictions of law, or again (to go to an
entirely different matter), the license permitted in the
social mtercourse of the sexes. On the other hand he had
no idea of the high doctrines broached in England on the
virtues of plain dealing and veracity, and of the little
care exercised in our unscientific nation to adjust those
great social qualities with the claims of our duty to
God. ^ It is thus that in Catholic countries the first
place is given to the supernatural, and but the second
to the merely neighbourly virtues; while with a Protes-
tantpeople the rule is reversed. ^ Among the poorer classes
in England, and (still more) in Wales, purity before
mamage is the exception ; cross the channel to Ireland,
and it will be found the all but invariable rule."'^' ^ On the
contrary, the irascible and headstrong passions are
developed to excess in southern countries; in our own
they are held in check by prudence and calculation. Irish
and Italians are proverbially hot-headed, Englishmen
prudent, Scotchmen ** canny. ^' Hence we may expect to
find, and we do find, that a writer like St. Alphonso, who
has a southern experience only, appears to Englishmen
over indulgent in the matter of the irascible, and over
strict in that of the concupiscible vices. As to the matter

* Wo choose Ireland as a more acknowledged instance. Mis-
sioDaries who are intimately acquainted with the relative spiritual
condition of Italy and England, report that the disadvantage is
equally on our side in comparison with the Italian poor.

l40 Proieatant Ideas of the ConfessionaL — [Sept-

of fair dealing, we really believe that there is in England
a very real and a very valuable appreciation of it ; all we
hope is that we Catholics may come in for a little more of
the benefit of its exercise. The other subject (of veracity)
we cannot dismiss without one or two passing observations,
which we consider to the point, although they are obviously
inadequate to a question which a volume would hardly
suffice to elucidate. ^

A journal which is understood to represent the opinions
of the highest Church party in the Establishment, and
which is loud in its professions of English fairness, has
lately charged the Catholic Church with what it calls,
a *' theory of lying.*'^'" We are almost tempted to reply,
that if we have the theory, Protestants are conspicuous for
the practice. Let any one but reflect, for an instant, upon the
lies, palpable and enormous, of which Catholics and their
religion have been the subject in England during the year
now drawing to its close— lies oft repeated and as often
exposed, and again for the hundredth time uttered by
grave dignitaries in Church and State ; by bishops, deans,
archdeacons, canons, rectors, curates, members of parlia-
ment, mayors, aldermen, sheriffs, magistrates; embodied
in addresses to the throne, in petitions to parliament, in
pamphlets, in reviews, in tracts, in platform speeches, in
parliamentary debates, in police reports, in leading articles;
flung around, in short, with the authority of every name
which can aflbrd them sanction, and through the
medium of every channel which can give them currency—
and then, with the full force of this fact upon his mind,
let him pass judj^ment upon a writer, who upon the strength
of a representation which he receives through an imper-
fect if not a distorted medium, can bring a sweeping
charge against what he professes to believe the Church of
God, or a portion of it, of erecting falsehood into a system ;
while, as to the unblushing practice of this odious vice,
(and that too, not in self-defence, or in defence of religion,
or established government, or anything else that is good
and great, but) in the exercise of the most unchristian
hatred against God's Church and its members, and those

* See tlie " Guardian" newspaper of August the 27th, of the
current year.

185k] ** Pascal the Youngerr U\

members his own compatriots, neighbours, and former
friends, he either ignores facts, or frames apologies.

We have already admitted that Englishmen as a nation
are undoubtedly alive to the virtues which concern the
intercourse of man with his neighbour ; we also think,
that, on the other hand, their protests against Catholic
*' amphibology/' are not a little pedantic and unreal.
Despite all their eloquent invectives against our doctrine
on equivocation, which of them is there who hesitates to
act on that doctrine in the ordinary affairs of life ? How
many excellent people positively sanction, how many more
indolently tolerate, how few unequivocally condemn, the
conventional fictions "Not at home,' '/'Not guilty,'' and the
like? Who of them would encourage in practice, however he
may seem to sanction in controversy, a view of morality
which would give all the Paul Pry's of society a right to
ask any impertinent question they might please, with the
certainty of receiving either a true answer, or such an one
as at any rate they might construe into a virtual acknow-
ledgment of the fact at which they desired to arrive ? Such
a doctrine as these men 'profess would in fact amount to a
complete premium upon impudence ; no final objection to
it we admit if it were sanctioned by the law of God, but
any how an antecedent diflSculty in its way ; while in
fact it is found to derive no countenance whatever from
the practice even of our Blessed Lord Himself, to say
nothing of Saints of the Old Testament. Was Sir
Walter Scott, for instance, bound to avow himself as the
author of Waverley, to every coxcomb who chose to put
the question to him ? Was he bound to give an answer
which would have been tantamount to an avowal ? Will
Protestant moralists do us the favour of devising for an
author in such circumstances, a reply which will at once
give, and suggest, no information whatever to an imper-
tinent questioner, and yet stop short of a denial ? Or will
he take the opposite line and argue that an author has no
right over his own secret ? Carry the same consideration
from the province of authorship into that of law, of medi-
cine, of commerce, and see whether everywhere you are
not obliged to tolerate, and even allow, a practice at vari-
ance with your fine theory ; or, if you will not go so far as
this with us, candidly acknowledge that the whole subject
is so beset with difficulty, as to make any scientific anal^'-
sis of it a gain, and at any rate to deprive of the right of

142 Protestant Ideas of the Confessional. [Sept.

objection to what pretends to be such, those who have no
counter theory to produce. If you choose to say that Pro-
testants tell fewer lies without a theory than Catholics with
one, we take leave to deny your assertion, and beseech you to
bear in mind, that there are men on our side who have
tried both systems, and have therefore a better right to be
heard than those of you who have tried but one. Nor let
it be forgotten that those Protestants are not many who
would be prepared to assent to the uniform teaching of our
theologians and spiritual writers ; viz., that it is not law--
ful to tell one venial lie, though a man might therehif
'ransom all the souls in hell/'

In the pamphlet to which we have already^ given too
large a share of our attention, there is one insinuation
which we must not altogether overlook, because it has
lately found an echo from a quarter where such a response
might least have been expected. At page 19 of this

{)amphlet, we meet with words which can mean nothing
ess than to imply that priests are to be found, who would,
upon occasions, violate the seal of confession. We
Catholics know not when and where we are secure. We
had tliought that if there were any charge which, by con-
sent even of our enemies, was supposed too monstrous to
bring against us, it had been that of an indifference, on the
part of priests, to the sanctity of this particular obligation.
We had believed in our simplicity, not that any supposed
respect for laws human or divine, any sentiment of honour,
any sense of the duties reciprocal to an act of reposed
confidence, or other creditable motive, but that our chai-
racter for prudence, our proverbial eye to the security
of priestcraft, to the maintenance of ecclesiastical power
and influence over subservient flocks and too confiding dis-
ciples, would have saved us with the world from the effect of
this peculiar calumny. But it seems we were mistaken.
All against which wc have actually been protected in the
pages of " Pascal the Younger,y has been the overt charge
of this especial baseness. An innuendo definite enough to

♦ Tho words of St. Ignatius (the Founder of tlie supposed
school of lax Theology) are " Tantum ac tale est malum," (pecca-
turn veniale) " ut, teste Sto. Auselmo, nee pro salute omnium ange-
lorum atque hominum ezpedirec fieri vel unicura poccatum vouiale/'

1 85 1. J '* Pascal the Younger:* 1 43

awaken suspicion, not so distinct as to provoke retort, was
a masterpiece of controversial ingenuity too effective to let
go. A more ingenuous and high minded writer, whom it
is painful even to name in such company, has openly
brought the same charge against a portion of the clergy in
a foreign city. Perhaps he was too artless to observe the
slip in controversy, more probably he was too candid to
care for it, but at any rate disputants more subtle and
more determined, will hesitate, for once, to borrow a
calumny against the Church, because they will see it to
involve a self-contradiction. They will be quick to dis-
cern that the whole power of the confessional, as a spiritual
engine, hinges upon the inviolability of the ^ Seal.*"'
Even Protestants, we should think, will admit that
from the very nature of the case, no evidence can be
producible (as none is produced), sufficient to overcome
the antecedent improbability, to say the very least
of any confessor, who had once so abused his trust,
having future opportunities of repeating his offence. On
the other hand, as every well instructed Catholic knows,
there is the strongest antecedent probability, that (sup-

f)osing the story to have any foundation at all) what looks
ike a revelation of secrets learned in confession, although
essentially other and altogether innocent and lawful, might,
where the recipient of the tale is not a Catholic, or the
informer a bad, or ill-instructed one, be mistaken for that
most dreadful, even among sacerdotal crimes.

And now, in conclusion, let us once more guard the
reader against mistaking this article for what it is not.
That which it is not, is an Essay on the principles of
Catholic Morality ; a conceivable, perhaps a desirable
work, but one, at any rate, which does not fall within the
scope and profession of this attempt. AH which that
attempt undertakes is, to review a book, which, although
a single and a small one, is an average specimen of its
class. This book professes, in a triumphant strain, to
shew up the current morality of the Church, as sophistical
and wicked. What we have undertaken, and, as we claim,
"with success, is to convict this book itself of the dishonesty
and wickedness which it imputes to us ; a grave accusa-

• We find, however, that the *' Guardian" apparently credits the
statement in question.

144 No Popery Novels. [SepL

tioii indeed, but one from which the utmost latitude of
Christian charity will not suffer us to take refuge, save ia
the supposition of an amount of ignorance and dullness,
which would involve, of necessity, no fault at all if com-
bined with modesty, but which, when committed to the
cause of swelling a senseless and wicked outcry against the
Christians of north, south, east, and west, with their
ecclesiastical rulers, from the Supreme PontiflF, down to
the humblest missionary Priest, assumes the character of
such inexcusable presumption, as is separated by but a
faint line, from more subtle forms of iniquity. But we
rather fear that the hypothesis upon which charity, as
regulated by truth, must compel us to settle, is that which
subjects the work before us to the charge of moral per-
verseness and intellectual incompetency together; of
malice combined with ignorance, which, while in no
degree forming its apology, is abundantly sufficient to sup-
ply its antidote, with all readers who do not start, like the
great majority of our Protestant fellow-countrymen, with
assuming it as a first principle in the controversy, that the
CathoUc Church is more likely to be in the wrong, than
any man, woman, or child, w^ho chooses to assail her.

Art. VI. — The Lady and tlie Priest. An Historical Romance. Br
Mrs. Maberly, Author of *• Emily," "Leontiue," ** Melanthe,
"Fashion," kc. 3 vols., 8vo. London: Colburn, 1851.

WHEN some of Foote's friends were expressing their
regret at his having been kicked in Dublin, Dr. John-
son declared that, on the contrary, it was rather a subject
of congratulation. '^ He is rising in the world,*' said the
doctor; *'when he was in England, no one thought it
worth white to kick him.'' If Catholics needed anything
to console or cheer them under the manifold abuse, insult,
and misrepresentation, of which they have been the object
for the last twelve months, they might well apply this

iSdI.J No Popery Novels, 145

philosophic observation to themselves. If the past year pre-
sents, in this respect, a striking contrast with those which had
preceded it, the true reason is to be found in the increasing
numbers, influence, and activity of the Catholic body. If
CathoUcs are beaten and abused now, it is because they have
become formidable. If the storm of violence with which
they have been visited, was not earlier raised against them,
it was not because there was any want of disposition on the
part of the assailants, but because it was ^* not worthwhile
to assail them.*'

There are very few, we imagine, who will not now admit
that the so-called Papal Aggression was but the pretext,
or, at most, the occasion, for this fierce and sustained
assault upon Catholics and (catholic principles, the con-
summation of which seems now to have arrived. The real
source of the heart-burning lay far deeper. The real
aggression upon Protestantism came from within. It lay
in the revelation, which the events of the last ten years have
made, of its own internal hollowness and weakness. When
those who had been accustomed, from earliest youth, to
look upon their Church as one of the institutions of the
empire, which, however it might be assailed from without,
at least rested securely upon its own foundations, and
held by unchanging tenure the allegiance of its own sub-
jects, discovered upon a sudden that doubt had began to
arise and to become difiused ; that doubt was deepening
into distrust, and that distrust was rapidly turning to dis-
content, and even to disaffection ; when they found disaffec-
tion assume a definite form and purpose ; when they saw
distrust of the authority of England gradually shape itself
first into respect, then into reverence, and eventually into
submission, to that of Rome ; above all, when they saw
piety, learning, reputation, rank, earnestness, and influence,
withdrawing from their side, and ranging themselves with
her whom they had hitherto despised, or rather, in the ful-
ness of their contempt, ignored altogether ; then it was that
the natural decay of Anglicanism was assumed to be a
result of the aggressive policy of Rome. The discontent,
and jealousy, were the same, and had long existed ; but
they now found a new object. The bitter ingredients so
long fermenting in the caldron, at length reached the
boiling point, and the overflow was but the more fierce
and more universal, that it had been so long delayed.

And thus it is really wonderful how skilfully and how

VOL. XXXI.-No. LXI. 10

146 No Popery Novels. [Sept

successfully the current has been diverted from its true and
natural channel. With the exception of the brief and
casual episode of St. Barnabas, the real source of the
tumult has been entirely ignored. A few faint and falter-
ing protests against the '^concealed Romanism*' of the Trao-
tarians, have occasionally lent a little variety to the pro-
ceedings of the country meetings ; but the brunt of the
violence has uniformly fallen upon old Popery ; and here,
as elsewhere, this traditionary scape-goat has been made
to bear the sins of the real oftender.

Still it is impossible, even for those who have been most
earnest in urging forward the movement, to shut
their eyes to the fact, that it has been a hollow and
ephemeral one. There is not a symptom of reality aboat
it. Not one great principle of its own growth has been
evolved in its progress, not a single new element has
been introduced into the contest. The topics of decla-
mation have uniformly been the same old and hacknied
bugbears by which the terrors of the past generation were
wont to be kept alive. It has, perhaps, helped off the
old stock, which was growing mouldy upon the shelves;
but not a single fresh fashion, or a single new material,
has been produced for the occasion.

Indeed it is, to some extent, amusing, to turn over in
any of the published catalogues, the lists of the new pole-
mical publications, which have literally flooded the market
within the last ten mouths, and to see how large a propor-
tion among them, if you except those which bear upon the
purely legal question, are utterly without reference to the
immediate cause of the excitement. New editions of anti-
Roman Theology, rifaccimenti of lectures upon Popery,
hacknied sketches of papal and priestly domination, tirades
against the Inquisition and the Index Expurgatorim

familiar to the ears of our forefathers since the days of I^rd
George Gordon ; — these, and such as these, will be found
to make up the staple of the No Popery Uterature of the
past season ; and the very titles of the majority of the pub-
lications, will sufficiently shew that Catholicism in itself,
and not the aggressive step into which it is sought to tor-
ture the decree, for the establishment of the hierarchy, is the
true object of this fierce attack.

And yet there are some writers who, even in works
of a more general character, have taken occasion
from the excitement itself, to address themselves to the

1851.] No Popery Novels. 147

pr^'udices and passions aroused in this crisis. No
Catholic who had watched the progress of light litera-
ture in England for the last few years, could have failed to
observe a slight but growing improvement in its general
tone, in reference to our religion. If we except a few
books of the Hawkstone school, hardly any professedly
anti- Catholic novels had appeared of late years; and
there seemed to be far less of bitterness in the views and
language of the few which occasionally did appear, than
used to mark the novels of the olden time. And hence
it is that we regard as one of the least pleasing signs
of the times, and as one of the most formidable evi-
dences of a return to the ancient feuds, and to the bigotry
on which these feuds were founded, the revival, and
we are sorry to add, the reviving popularity, of one of the
oldest, and, for the general public, most pernicious, enemies
of truth, — the '^ no popery novel, 'Mn its very worst form,
even such as it existed in the days of "Monk/^ Lewis,
and the kindred panderers to the prejudices of Protestan-
tism. The novels of the last season display more malig-
nity than we ever expected to see again exhibited, at least
in works destined for the perusal of the educated and
enlightened.

There are some, we are aware, who may feel disposed to
look with utter indifference upon this class of literature, to
regard as of very little importance the influence which it is
calculated to exercise, and to consider it entirely below the
serious notice even of the most nervous observer of the
signs of the times. But we have more than once express-
ed our own sense of its importance. Contemptible as it
may be for its own sake, no impressions, we feel assured,
can possibly prove more pernicious than those which are
skilfully conveyed through its medium ; and the influence
which It may be presumed to possess at all times, is natur-
ally increased in a period of excitement like the present,
and at a time when the diSusion of cheap literature, and the
immense multiplication of readers, especially in the least
suspicious and most impressible classes, have enlarged a
hundred-fold the sphere of its action.

However heartily, therefore, we may ourselves despise
the tawdry and ill-conceived sketches which, for the most
part, characterize religious fiction, yet we are far from under-
rating their effect upon others; and we do not hesitate to own
to a ceFtain admixture of regret with the shame and indig-

l48 No Popery Novels. [Sept

nation which have been stirred within us by'more than one
of the publications of the past season. We could not but
remember that, silly and malignant as they must seenoi to
Catholics, and to those who know anything of Catholics or
their principles, there were, nevertheless, thousands of
unsuspecting readers by whom they would be received
without doubt and without question, and on whose miudfl
the impression made by them would be just as fatal and as
permanent, as though it were founded on truth and justice
Itself. We shall be excused, therefore, we trust, if we devote
a few pages to a subject which, however frivolous and unwor-
thy of serious notice it may appear in some respects, involves,
nevertheless, many and most important interests, especially
at a time like the present. Our object is rather to snow, by
example, to what an extent the evil has gone, than to enter
into a serious consideration of the work to which we shall
have occasion to refer.

We have selected, as a type of the class, the work which
stands at the head of these pages, chiefly because it
appears to have attracted more notice, and to have obtain-
ed a wider circulation than any of its competitors iu the
race of bigotry. It must be recollected that the " Lady
and the Priest" belongs to a branch of the novel- writing
art, in which the calumnies against Catholics, but too
common in the whole class, are at once most dangerous
and most inexcusable. It professes to be an JSistorical
Jiomance, and to deal with real characters well known in
the history of the times in which they lived. We need
hardly say that this species of fiction, while it leaves a great

f)art to the fancy and invention of the author, has certain
aws of its own, just as well as serious history ; and that the
violation of these conventional laws ma^r involve, and often
does involve, as grave a violation of historical justice, as
a departure from truth in the ordinary narrative of history.
The historical novelist is as strictly bound to represent
fairly the character, the principles, and, in so far as it in-
volves either of these, the conduct, of the personages whom
he introduces, as is the historian himself. The license of
fiction, wide and unrestricted as it is in all else beside,
stops short here. There is a strict compact to this effect
between the author and the public for whom he writes ; and
to violate this compact is to sin not merely against the rules
of art, but against those of truth, justice, and honesty
itself.

1 85 1 .] No Popery Novels. 1 49

Unfortunately, also, there are but too many in these
days whose impressions of history, if they be not altogether
derived from these slippery sources, are at all events
shaped and modified by them. For the young and imsus-
pecting, for the imperfectly educated, for the countless mul-
titudes, of whose mental aliment the circulating libraries
and cheap book-clubs form the chief and almost the sole
depository, the historical novel is all but an oracle. It
oflTers a sort of compromise between light and serious read-
ing; and, on that understanding, is but too often accepted
without hesitation and without enquiry. Nor, however we
may condemn and deplore the weakness of sucli a confi-
dence on the reader's part, can we conceive anything more
base and cruel than a literary or historical deceit practised
by an author under such circumstances, and upon victims
so defenceless and unsuspecting.

The romance before us makes special profession of his-
torical truthfulness. It not only purports by its title to
delineate faithfully and truly the historical characters which
it introduces, but to such a length is this profession of
fidelity carried, that the author thinks it necessary to apolo-
gize, in the preface, even for her departure from the ancient
forms of speech in recording the conversations which are
introduced into the narrative. If for the substitution of
the modern conversational tone in the place of these quaint
and obsolete addresses, a formal explanation is deemed
necessary, it can hardly be supposed that a writer thus
scrupulously alive to the necessity of maintaining the pro-
prieties of the language of the period, should not exhibit
emial, or rather far greater, delicacy of conscience in
all that concerns the integrity of the history in its more
essential bearings.

^ Now we do not hesitate to say , that in all these really essen-
tial bearings, it has never been our lot to see the truth,
the propriety, and even the probability, of history more
recklessly and more disgracefully disregarded, than in the
" Lady and the Priest.'* A book so blindly bigoted in all
its views, so reckless in its statements, so crooked in its
perversion of facts, so unscrupulous in its imputation of
motives, so revolting in its exaggeration of diaboHcal wick-
edness, so ingenious in its invention of black and malig-
nant schemes, so regardless of virtue, of delicacy, and of
moral principle, in the pursuit of its object, — so fertile, in a
word, in all the worst expedients of misrepresentation, we

l50 A^c; Popery Novels. [Sept

have never suffered the pain of perusing. It carries us
back into the very darkest and blindest days of the fenatl-
cism over which all good men weep. Instead of the year
of grace 1851, we should naturally expect to find upon its
title, the imprint of the fiery days of Lord George Gordon,
or we should rather say, of the disgraceful years when
calumny and falsehood were enthroned and worshipped in
the person of Gates and Bedloc.

It is painful to write thus of a book which comes before
us with a female name upon its title-page. But to write
otherwise would be a weak betrayal of our trust. Truth is
stronger than gallantry. Morality must be heard before
politeness. And, in truth, it would be but an equivocal
homage to the purity, the modesty, the delicacy, and the
other qualities of which the sex is the ideal impersonation,
to suffer them to be outraged and insulted with impunity,
under the undesei-ved protection of its name. The author
of the ^' Lady and the Priest'^ has unsexed herself by its
very conception. The title-page, indeed, displays a female
name ; but the character, and even the pretension, ceases
there. We miss, in the very choice of the subject, in the
delineation of the characters, in the selection of the inci-
dents, in the portraiture of the actors, in the whole tenor of
the work, the modesty, the gentleness, the womanly ten-
derness, the delicacy, even the decent reserve, which we
are accustomed to associate with the idea of woman ; and
there are opinions, incidents, expressions, and insinuations
in the book before us, which disentitle the author to the
privileges of her sex, just as plainly as if, like a well-known
foreign contemporary^ she had discarded the female ffarb
altogether. It is impossible in reading the book to close
one's eyes to these reiterated disavowals of the character to
which the title-page makes claim. It is impossible not to
feel that this title is but a mask wherewith to cover a hard,
acrimonious, ungentle spirit ; and, feeling this, it would be a
false delicacy not to deal with it accordingly.

Perhaps we should apologize for bringing these things
before our readers at ail; and, undoubtedly, at another
time, we should have shrunk from the unpleasing office.
But there are times when it would be wrong to judge by
ordinai-y rules of action. The excitement from which the
country is just begiuning to recover, was an^ extraordinary
and unnatural one ; and its very excess is at once the
explanation and apology of any extraordinary course to

1851.] No Popery Novels, 1 51

which it may give occasion. It is well that Catholics
should know the means by which the mind of England has
been stirred against them. It is well, still more, that the
eyes of Protestants should be opened to the black and
malignant arts by which they have been deceived into their
fanaticism.

" The Lady and the Priest** professes to be the story of
the great contest between the crown and the mitre, in the
persons of Henry 11. and Thoraas-a-Becket. Becket is
" the Priest.**^ His history is shaped so as to bear upon the
prevailing topic of controversy during the late momentous
year ; and in order to give point and interest to the story* his
fortunes are mixed up with those of the celebrated Kosa-
mond CliflEbrd, better known as " Fair Rosamond,*' the
most famous of the mistresses of Henry II. Fair Rosa-
mond is *' the Lady.**

At the opening of the tale, '* the Priest'* is an obscure
monk^ — the prior of the monastery of Severnstoke. The
Ladvj during the absence of her father, Lord de Cliftbrd, in
the Holy War, is a half novice, half ward, of the convent of
Grodstowe, of which Becket is the director and guiding
spirit. The fortunes of both are traced to their close ;
those of Rosamond to the crisis of a series of foul intrigues,
of which she isTepresented as the object, — those of Becket
to his bloody death at the altar of his own cathedral.

The^ characters throughout are professedly historical.
The king Henry, — his queen Eleanor, — Theobald, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, — De Montfort, — De Essex, —
Ranulph de Broc, and many minor agents, are selected
from among the actors in the real drama of the time ; and
everything is done to give an appearance of reality to the
events out of which the narrative is woven.

Now what will the reader guess is the tale which this
writer, so squeamishly alive to the most minute proprieties
of language, deliberately places before her readers as the
** romance of the history** of the great papist saint and
martyr, Thomas of Canterbury ? It is as follows :

He is introduced to the reader as the prior of the monas-
tery of Severnstoke, profoundly ambitious, fully conscious
of his great natural and acquired gifts, but artfully dis-
guising this consciousness and the proud hopes built
thereon, under the appearance of humility, meekness, aus-
terity, and zeal for the interests and honour of religion.
Among the many occupatious to which his life is devoted^

152 No Popery Novels* [Sept-

the spiritual direction of the convent of Godstowe is brought
prominently forward, manifestly with an intended beanng
upon one of the incidents of the past year. The Superior-
ess of this house is drawn after the true Protestant idea, —
harsh, bigoted, acrimonious, tyrannical, hating the youth
and beauty which are no longer her own, devoted to silly
and superstitious observances, and seeking only to enrich
and aggrandize her convent, which in her contracted view,
is identified with religion and the Church itself. In the
exorcise of this hateful vocation, Rosamond Clifford is one
of the chief objects of her intrigues. Her father's long
absence in the Holy War has rendered it more than pro-
bable that his broad lands will speedily pass into the hands
of his only child and heiress ; and the scheme by which it is
souijht to entrap her against her will, and thus to secure
her inheritance for *' the Church, *' is but one of several
episodes incidentally introduced into the book to suit the
events of the time, and for the purpose of adapting it to
..the bad excitement to which it seeks to pander. Becket,
to whose guardianship this fair young girl had been
entrusted by her father, and whose heart, cold and self-
wrapt as it is, is not insensible to her beauty and innocence,
is for a time a party to this nefarious scheme. He is
only induced to discourage it by the hope of turning
the benefits which it is intended to secure to a greater per-
sonal advantage ; and, to the infinite mortification of the
lady abbess, *'the heiress,'' through the agency of ber
youthful lover, Ranulph de Broc, is withdrawn from the
convent and restored to her father's castle.

It is here she is first seen and loved by Henry. It is
here also that Henry first learns the capacity and the
acquirements of the hitherto obscure monk, and calls him
to his service ; — and it is here that the ambitious priest
first gives full reins to his ambition, and lays the first lines of
that web of mingled craft and daring, to the weaving of
which his after life was devoted.

We can hardly prevail upon ourselves to pursue the foul
and hateful tale. From the first moment that Becket sees
the prospect of advancement open before him, he throws
aside every principle of honour and of justice. He first
intrigues for the ruin of De Montfort and De Essex, his
rivals in the affections of his master; next he secures, by
adroit management, the withdrawal from England of Lora
Clifford, Rosamond's father, and De Broc, her devoted

1 85 1 . ] ■ No Popery Novels. 1 53

thougli unrequited lover ; and thus removes every impedi-
ment to the atrocious scheme by which he seeks to make
her the instrument of his favour with the king, whose pas-
sion he was not slow to discover, and to whose guardianship,
notwithstanding, he induces her fiither to consign her at
his departure. In all these preliminaries, he manages to
conceal his agency altogether ; and these obstacles being
removed, he allows the plot to develope itself. Rosamond,
conscious of her love for the king, by an impulse of in-
stinctive modesty, seeks to withdraw from the court ; but
Becket, her confessor and guardian, overrules her scruples,
interposes his authority, as her spiritual director ^ to pre-
vent her retirement, and, in a word, becomes a pander to
the illictlove of his master! And this, while he himself,
though unavowedly even to his own heart, loves the very
victim whom he thus basely sacrifices to his bad ambition !

Rosamond, even though fallen, is tormented by remorse.
But Becket, who has been sent to France upon an em-
bassy, had taken the precaution o^ prohibiting her from
applying to any other confessor during his absence ; and
upon his return, consummates his infamous scheme by
absolving her from the sin and declaring it not sin, on
condition of her bestowing all her wealth and all her
lands upon tj^e Church, and swearing to exercise all her
influence with the king for the interest of religion !

It is to these base arts, and such as these, as much
as to his extraordinary powers, that the author traces his
favour with the king, and especially his elevation to the
See of Canterbury. He surrenders himself without
reserve, as the pander and confidant of Henry's passions.
He prostitutes his sacred ministry by baptizing the children
of this unlawful love ; he sullies his honour and self-
respect by lavishing caresses on them ; he maintains the
most affectionate relations with their fallen mother: but
having at last, by thus flattering the vices of the king,
accomplished the great object of his ambition in secur-
ing the archiepiscopal throne, he turns upon the master
to whom he owed all his fortunes, and by a mixture of
hypocrisy, daring, and intrigue, openly proposes to sub-
ject to himself, as bishop, the very power to which he
had before prostituted all the spiritual gifts at his
disposal.

The history of Becket*s '^ aggression'* upon the rights
of the crown, is a wretched compound of ignorance, mis-

154 No Popery Novels.

representation, and malignity. It displays the most
deplorable unacquaintance not alone with the facts of die
case, bnt even with the grounds of the controversy. As a
sample of the writer's accuracy in this particular we need
only say that she represents the bishops, as claiming the
right of judging in all cases of murder (ii. 251.), and
passes over altogether among the ^' customs'' against
which St. Thomas protested, the very worst and most
objectionable of them all ; — that of appropriating die
revenues of vacant sees daring the time of their vacancy—
a direct premium upon the fraudulent practice of prolong-
ing such vacancies, introduced by William Rufus.

These, and many similar misrepresentations, however, we
pass over, to come to the blackest and foulest of the imputa-
tions upon Becket. Having thus, with diabolical craft and
hypocrisy, looked on and assisted in the ruin of this con-
fiding girl, he avails himself of the terror and alarm into
which she is plunged by the prospect of her father's
return, and the fear of his anger, to offer her his own
unhallowed love, as the price of the protection which he
professes that he alone can afford her ! And on her indig-
nant rejection of this profligate proposal, his love turns to
undisguised and implacable hatred. He pursues her, her
children, and her friends, with every si>ecies of malicious
cruelty; he employs the most terrible of the* arms of the
church as the instruments of his fiendish malice ; and by
an unscrupulous use of these weapons, closes up against
her, through the superstitious fears of the slaves of the
Church, every refuge, even that convent of Godstowe,
where her youth had been spent. Nay, so elaborately has
the author drawn out this hateful sketch, that she evea
attributes the inveteracy of Becket's hostility towards the
kinff , to the rage and jealousy of disappointed love !

Wo blush at the thought of polluting our pages with
these hate (ul and disgusting details: but we cannot help
thinking that they are necessary, as a portion of the history
of the great protestant movement of the past year. The
idea conveyed by this hasty summary of the tale, however,
would be quite incomplete. It is necessary to read the
book itself in order to understand the full measure of its
malignity. And painful as it is to ourselves to transcribe,
and distressing as it will be to the reader to peruse them,
we feel it our duty to subniit a few extracts as specimens
of the class of representations of Catholics and Catholic

«
«<

1851.] No Popery Noveh^ 155

opinions, which have become popular in England,
and upon which the fiery exhibitions which have astonished
and disgusted all the nations of the continent are
mainly founded.

Take for example the following sample of Catholic
morality and moral teaching. Rosamond, conscious of
her own weakness, seeks to fly from the dangers of Henry's
court, and consults her confessor, Becket.

" * Reverend father, you know that I have ever obeyed jou in
all things. I would do so now, but that I cannot, I cannot remain
here, ' said Rosamond, in a tone of deep distress.

*Thy duty, my daughter, comes before thy wish.'
< My duty,' said Rosamond, sinking upon her knees, and cross-
ing her hands upon her breast, ' my duty commands me to be
gone — my duty to God.'

"'The King and the Queen are thy protectors, my child,' said
Becket, with an air of paternal benevolence ; ' thy father placed
thee in their charge. Ilast thou consulted their wishes ? Hast
thou obtained their consent ?'

" ' I have not dared to speak of such a thing,' replied Rosamond,
timidly.

•• * And why not ? ' asked Becket, austerely.

"'Because,' said Rosamond, *I knew they would not consent.
I would be gone without their knowledge ; but,' she added with
humility, 'not without yours, my father, and not without your
blessing and your pardon.'

•* « Pardon !' echoed Becket.

" ' Yes, my father, for I have sinned— sinned in thought ; but I
repent me of my sin.'

'"It shall be forgiven thee, my daughter, if thou confessest.'

" ' I will — I do, my father, though shame makes me dumb,' said
Rosamond, in a voice of agony, as the blood, rushing to her face,
in a moment dyed it crimson. She theu added, in a low tone,
' The King has spoken to me of love.'

"'Ha!' exclaimed Becket, with a well- feigned gesture of
surprise.

" ' Such words,' continued Rosamond, gathering courage from
her despair, ' as a maiden may not hear from one already the
husband of another.'

" ' And is it for this that thou wouldst fly ?' asked Becket, with,
an intonation that, slight as it was, made Rosamond start.

** * And it is not enough, my father ? Why should one speak of
love to me who cannot be his wife ? ' said Rosamond, with an air
of simplicity touching in its sadness.

" ' The King is young and thoughtless,' replied Becket, apolo-
getically ; * he could not mean thee harm, my daughter.'

l56 No Popery Novels. [Sepf.

"'Father,* said Rosamond, more gravel jr than before, *I am
verj yoang — almost a child, and unskilled in this world's ways.
Of right or wrong I know no nice distinctions ; but this I know,
that when I listened to the words of love from one already wedded,
it seemed to me as though it were a deadly sin ; and yet I would
not cause displeasure to the King. It is for this that 1 would leave
the court.'

•* • To pine and wither in the convent's gloom,' observed Becket
insidiously. Rosamond shuddered from head to foot.

•' * I know it, my father,' she said in a low voice.

" < Daughter,' resumed Becket, after a few moments of considera-
tion, ' thou hast not told me all ; there is another reason^ stronger
than the King's love for thee, that urges thee to fly.'

*' Rosamond started, as if some sudden sting had reached her
heart.

" * And that is,' continued her pitiless tormentor, • thy love for
him.'

" A faint cry, which she could not suppress, burst from her lips,
and she covered her burning face with her hands, as she actually
writhed at his feet. Tho rectitude of her heart was, however,
stronger than the terrible feelings of shame she endured ; and the
conviction of pardon and safety lying solely in tho fulness of con-
fession, which from her infancy had been impressed upon her, gave
her an unnatural courage. She raised her head once more, and,
althou^^h her voice was low and tremulous, she said distinctly,

*• * Yes, my father, you have said it — it is my love for him.'

"'Fear nothing, my daughter,' answered Becket, encourag-
ingly ; * thou hast nought to fear.'

'* A light, like a sunbeam breaking through the winter cloud,
passed over the agitated countenance of Rosamond, and was gone.
The look of doubt and terror came back upon her face, and her
large blue eyes were fixed with touching earnestness upon him
whom she firmly believed could guard or annihilate both body
and soul.

•< * Fear nothing, my daughter/ he continued ; • thy heart is ia
thine own keeping. Thou wouldst not so love the King didst thou
not think his love was equal to thine own. Thou believest in his
love 1 — answer me truly.'

" ' I believe,' answered Rosamond, with a frankness that showed
the purity of her intentions, ' that he loves me even as he has
sworn to me — better than his kingdom or his life — that he has no
will but mine — no wish but that which I should tell him to
obey.'

** * And hast thou no pride, my daughter, thus to rule and govern
tlie heart of a King ? '

"*By reason of his being a King, none, my father,' replied
Rosamond coldly..

*' * The desHnies of nations might lie at thj command,* said Beoket

1851.1 No Popery Novels. 15*

gentlj, as he slowlj scanned the beaatiful and ingenuous face that
was now upraised before him. But it remained unmoyed ; and
then he added, * And all the holy church throughout the world might
bless the day that gave thee power to turn a mind so fruitful to her
gfory. Great deeds of honour to the Lord, and to the holy saints,
might spring from a word of thine.*

'* Rosamond, whose religious and somewhat superstitious feelings
were deeply interwoven with all others, seemed for a moment
struck by these words. The same expression of hope and joj
flitted across her face ; but it sank again into melancholj, and a
deep sigh broke from her lips as she said,

*** But to do evil that good may com^ is equally a sin ; is it not, my
faiher ? *

" • All may he forgiven, if done to the glory of God, The welfare of
his holy church is gracious to his eyes ; and the desire to serce her truly
sanctifies many a means,* replied Becket ; and then he continued in a
more hurried tone, ' but these are temptations, my daughter — I
would not hare thee think of these.'' — vol. ii. pp. 120 — 127.

Again, nothing could be more revolting than the con-
trast which the following scene is intended to exhibit, and
which of its own nature must be meant to have an
application.

''But not even the goodness of her motive, the honesty and
simplicity of her faith, and submission to that which she conceived
to be her duty, could still the vile passions of man ; and a demou
in human form, still deeper dyed in infamy by the sacred garb he
wore, was there with ready hand to pluck the support from her
trembling foot, and precipitate her into the gulf below. Ambition
is the troubled ocean of wickedness. lb sweeps before it all that
would oppose its progress. The mighty mind of Becket had now
opened its flood-gates. What to him was a crime more or less %
What to him was a single life — above all, a single soul 1 It was as
nothing — a leaf upon the autumn blast — a grain of sand upon the
shore. The darling passion of his heart had burst forth, — £he
cherished maxim of his secret thoughts had budded in the first
gleam of the prospering sun. Shall its fruit be blighted er^ its
luscious flavour has steeped his senses in delight ? So weak a
thought never had entered his mind

'• * The whole world is not enough for one great man,* was his
constant exclamation when communing with himself. It had been
the dream of his youth, as it was now the business of his manhood.
So rapid had been the strides he had made towards his goal, that
it seemed to him already half attained ; but, as the last steps of
an ascent are ever the most steep, so the wary Becket knew that
double vigilance was necessary in order to keep what he had
gained, and to speed on his upward path. As every whole must be

158 iVb Popery Novels. [Sept.

worked out bj detail, he suffered nothing, howeyer trifling, to
escape his notice. He liked to gather up the thoughts of ererj
mind around him, and hold them in his hand like the ends of a
skein of silk." — voL ii. pp. 135 — 136.

There is more of baseness, however, in the imputation
conveyed in the passage which we are about to transcribe.
Nor has it even the poor excuse of passion to palliate its
malignity. We hardly know in what ternis to express our
reprobation of the cowardly slanders with which every
paragraph teems.

•* • Holy father,' replied Rosamond, thoughtfully, but very
steadily, ' I repent me of the sin — that is, I repent me of having
given offence to God and broken hi& lav ; but of the love that led
me to that sin. I do not repent.'

'*The honest simplicity with which poor Rosamond unveiled the
socrets of her heart, almost provoked a smile from Becket ; bat
having satisfied himself of all he wanted to know, which was
whether the love of Rosamond was strong euoujo^h to endure, he
began to grow weary of tlie part he was playing. The ceremony of
confession had value in his eyes only in proportion to the secular adifan*
tages to he gained from it. Ho hastened, therefore, somewhat to
shift his ground. Making a sign to Rosamond to rise from her
knees, he took two or three turns up and down the room ; then
sitting down at the table, he said in a kinder tone than he had
yet used, —

*' * My daughter, your fault is too strong for your mind. The
voice of earthly passion has so darkened your sense, that you
cannot form any wholesome judgment of what is true repentaince
and what is not. The spirit may truly be willing, but the flesh is
weak. Our Holy Church, however, in its great mercy and lovixig
kindness, lias decreed that atonement may also wash away sin ;
but if the sin be great, the atonement must be greater. Such is
the law of our good and glorious Mother, the Holy Church of Rome,
which has never erred, but gathers her pious and obedient children
closely beneath her wings. Inasmuch as you have truly confessed,
you, my daughter, have partly obeyed ; but what atonement are
you ready to make to an offended God, if your sin be remitted
to you V

** * Father, in all things I will be guided by you ; but ask
not '

*' ' Refrain,' interrupted Becket, hastily, ' refrain, my daaghter,
from such impious thoughts of love. Lift up your heart to Heaven,
and pray the Virgin Queen to mediate between the Holy One and
you. Say, what upon her altar will you lay^ if, through her %nieree»»
sum, you are pardoned now ?'

1861.] No Popery Novels. 169

" ' Take all that I have — all ! — all ! * exclaimed Rosamond, raptu-
rously, • Take what you will, my father, so that I go not hence !
Tell me what prayers and penance to endure> what fasts and vigils
to observe ; leave me but breath enough to live and love, and I
will bless and worship you, even as I bless and worship the Saintti
above ! '

'^Again Becket felt sadness creeping over him as these wild
words burst from the lips of the half-frantic girl. But he turned
once more to his worldly gain :

•"Prayer and penance shall you have,' he said, slowly and
sternly ; ' for by it is the heart purified, and the spirit lifted from
the grosser things of earth. Therefore, my daughter, listen to my
words, and so shall you be cleansed from your sin. Three times
each day before the image of the Blessed Virgin shall you stand
barefooted, and pray, with ashes strewn upon your head, one hour
each time ; and till the last prayer is said you must not break
your fast. "Will you do this ? '

'•* *I will, my father,' replied Rosamond, kneeling down.

^"And for sacrifice, much wiU he needed for a sin like yours.
The anger of the Lord must he appeased. Are you prepared, at
any cost, to huy the ahsoluiion of which you stand in need f ' asked
Becket, with an anxiety he could not wholly conceal.

"'Father, I am prepared. Say, what must I do?' asked
Rosamond, eagerly.

•• • Tou must give to the Holy Church evoy thing you possess. Not
only in alms, and jewels, and in gold mv^t such an offering he made,
huJL all your landx, castles, and retainers must pass at once into the
keeping of the see of Rome, AU tluzt you now have, and dU that you
may one day possess, must alike be dedicated to the glory of God, I, as
Hii poor minister here upon earth, will receive it at your hands. Say,
he added, insidiously recaUing to her thoughts his former threat, lest the
enormous sacrifice demanded might in any degree raise a doubt within
her mind, * if I absolve you of your sin, Sius rendering it no longer sin,
and suffer you lo remain tvithin the palace of the King, wiU you fulfil
aU that I have said /'

" * My father, I will fulfil it ; and from this hour I have no one
possession on this earth. AU, all is yours!' said Rosamond, as
joyously as before she had spoken with grief.

" • Then swear it !* pursued Becket, solemnly ; * and swear, more
over, in all things to be obedient to my will, and never to know
aught that may concern the Holy Church without instantly appriz-
ing me of it All that the King may say or do wh« rein her inte-
rests may be aifected must you confide to me. All that you can do,
hy persuasion or advice, to advance her welfare or her power, must he
fviJBiy done ; else is your sin and that of Henry unatoned and unabsolred
Swear then, my daughter ; and remember, if you break faith with
me, even to the shadow of a thought, you shall be accused here and
hereafter ; you shall straightway be driven from the King ; and in

IGO No Popery Novels. [Sept.

the darkest depth of purgatory your soul shall Ho for ever ! — and
for over !' "— voL ii. pp. 282—287.

It is easy to perceive that in this and many other pas-
sages, the picture drawn of the ambitious and unscrupu-
lous priest, is intended as a representation of a class rather
than of an individual, and that the maxims put into his
mouth are put forward as fundamental laws of popish
morality. The effect of the picture, however, is heightened
by the unscrupulous and all-absorbing ambition ascribed
to Becket himself. In the following passage he is des-
cribed, as upon the eve of the first great and decisive step
in his career of unscrupulous intrigue.

" The vanity of Becket was gratified beyond measure by thig
conduct of the Queen ; and when, sated with incense, he had taken
his leave of her and retired to his own apartments, he threv him-
self upon his couch — but it was to think, and not to sleep. All that
night he meditated upon his plans. What were vigils to him, corn-
pared to one hour of triumph or of power ? Watchful was his
nature ; watchful had been his life ; and the future might be, leM
than all, the season of repose. The iron strength of hia mind
towered above all physical wants or wishes ; and although ease and
luxury were the delights of his soul, ambition and vanity could
overmaster both.

*'The hours of darkness passed on ; and Becket, motionless as a
statue, retained the position he had at first assumed on entering
his chamber. The gorgeous dress he had worn at the banquet
gleamed in the dim light of two large waxen tapers, placed at the
opposite end of the room, towards which he kept his bright. eyes
turned with a fixity that made them appear as though the eyelids
never closed. It was the deep, abstracted look of one whose
thoughts are far away, soaring to the future, or sinking in the past ;
yet never did these absorbing visions, even for a moment, cloud the
intellect they bore upon their wings, so as to make it forgetful of
tho present. An hour-glass stood upon the table near his couch.
Not once had the hand of Becket failed to turn it ere it was too
late. Mechanically as ho appeared to perform this action, each
passing hour had been carefully noted by that ever vigilant brain ;
and tho last time, as ho turned the glass, he arose from his bed.

**No symptom of weariness escaped him. On the contrary, ho
traversed the room with the elastic step of youth ; and, pushing
back the hair from his forehead, he seemed to clear away thoughts
of the past. A look of determination was on his brow ; he knit his
lips so firmly together, that they were totally concealed by his long
black moustache.

'* Ou reaching the opposite end of the room to that where he had

1851.] ' No Popery Novels. 161

been lying, Becket took a key from the table, and lighted a small
lamp that stood upon it. He then extinguished the tapers, and
drew back the heavy cloth curtain that shaded the window. A
faint blue light streamed in through the narrow panes of the case-
ment ; the clouds were breaking in the east. Becket walked to
the hour-glass, and shook the sand : more than three-fourths
remained in the upper part of the glass.

''<It is the time/ he said; 'in an hour the sun will rise.*"
—pp. 112—115.

And in accordance with this character, he is made to
disregard every consideration, no matter how solemn or
how sacred, in the pursuit of the one great object. " The
cerenjony of confession was to him but as an empty form,
save in so far as it forwarded his views.** (ii. 282.) He is
represented as employing every instrument to compass
his ends. In the whole circle by whom he is surrounded
he can only see tools to work out his own aggrandise-
ment, and the achievement of his own objects. *' The
life of woman was as nothing in his eyes, save as it con-
duced to his own security or advancement.*' (ii. 109.)
His hypocrisy is described as knowing no bounds : his
hatred, as no less implacable than his pride was unmea-
sured. Under an outward clothing of sanctity, he
covered a heart which, had he but looked within, might
have niade him shudder at its depravity, (i. 301.) In
his brief career, he crowded together whole "years of
deceit and villany.**

From all this, the reader will perhaps be prepared for the
last revolting scene, to which we alluded in the summary.
Rosamond, in her alarm at the reported return of her
father, flies for counsel to Becket, her friend and coun-
sellor, and above all, her confessor. He but confirms and
exaggerates her alarms, by assuring her that her father
womd not fail to wipe out in blood the shame of her fall.

'' * Shame !* echoed Rosamond, with a shudder ; and then, as
she looked up steadily into the face of Becket, she continued, * if
there is shame, why then there must be guilt ? And yet, mj father,
how often have you told me I was absolved from every sin — and
that in loving Henry, I was but fulfilling a Divine mission to work
out, by my unworthy help, the welfare of the Church ?'

•• * It is true,' answered Becket, without quailing before this
home charge : * that is, it was true ; but things remain not as they
were.*

•* * But truth remains, my father, said Rosamond, with simpli-
VOL. XXXI.— No. LXI, ' U

Ll.

162 No Popery Novels. [Sept.

city, — * tbc pure and beauteous truth, the guiding star of our weak
wanderings here. Truth stays with us, my father, does it not?
Till now, you told me that my course was sinless, inasmuch as its
cud was good. If this was truth, my father, eyen as I held it from
your words to be, why should I tremble now ?'

" * The eye of prejudice or of malice looks askance,* replied the
Archbishop evasively ; ' it may not see all things even as we do,
who only view in all the glory of the Lord Most High. Walter de
Clifford is a stern proud man.' '* — vol. iii. pp. 41 — 42.

At last all concealment is at an end.

'* The ezultatiou with which these words were rapidly uttered,
and the passionate excitement of Becket, so different from his usual
cold and collected manner, fell upon the heart of Rosamond with a
chill for which she could not account. She looked wonderiuglj up
into the face of the Archbishop ; — it was as altered as his tone.
His dark eyes flashed fire ; and the paleness of his cheek was
replaced bv a brilliant glow, which, with the profusion of dark hair
he had suffered to grow round his face, gave him the appearance
of being much younger than he really was. He was a splendid
specimen of manly beauty ; but Rosamond, as she looked upon him,
saw it not. She only felt that he was changed, — and changed so
completely that for an instant it occasioned her a feeling of alarm.
An impression of fear suddenly rushed over her ; and, sponta-
neously impelled by it, she loosened her hand from the grasp
which Becket still retained of it. The movement recalled him to
himself ; for at that moment, maddened by ambition, his thoughts
had wandered for an instant to other scenes. The endeavour of
Rosamond did not succeed ; he clasped her hand still closer than
before, and with increasing fire went on.

•• • Yes, Rosamond, now you know all. I have unveiled before
your eyes the secrets of my heart. To no other mortal ear have
such words been given. I have trusted you with my very soul, —
for I love you, Rosamond,— yes, I love you ; but with a love so
fierce, so ardent, that all other pales before it.'

*' The passion with which these words were uttered, left no doubt
upon the mind of Rosamond of the sense they were intended to
convoy. Shocked and terrified beyond all power of control^ she
started to her feet exclaiming, —

** * This to me ! from you, my father.'

'* It was the last time she called him by that name.

***Ycs!* he replied, without heeding the dismay her looks
expressed, * I love you, Rosamond, with a depth those only know
who have not piecemeal squandered out their heart. Till now I
had forsworn love.'

•**Your vow! your vow f cried Rosamond, horrified almost
beyond the power of speech.

1851.] No Popery Novels. 163

" * Is nothiug,* he replied, with a laugh of scorn. * I need but
speak the word, and Rome dissolves all vows, all oaths, all obliga-
tions. The Pope is lord of Heaven, and earbh, and hell, — and more
than God on earth. We that make laws, can unmake them at our
will, for our will is the world's law. Fear not, Rosamond ; be mine
in peace — for mine you must be— mine you are ; body and soul I
claim you as my own.*

"'Never!' was the answer of Rosamond; but the vehemence
with which she spoke the word made it sound like thunder to the
astonished ear of Becket.

" * How V he exclaimed, rising in anger as he beheld the indig-
nation which shone on every feature of the beautiful face before
him. * You refuse ? you do not love me V

»«* Love you!* echoed Rosamond, with a look of loathing that
filled his proud heart with fury, * Heaven is my witness,* she con-
tinued, and at every word she seemed to gather courage from the
horror the thought inspired ; * I have loved you — you, who from my
cradle I have looked to as a father and as a friend — I have loved
you with a daughter's love, 1 have honoured and obeyed — obeyed,
alas ! alas ! even to my own destruction.*

*• * Call not that obedience,' said Becket angrily, ' which was but
the headlong following of your own vile passion.* Then suddenly
changing his tone, as if to give her an opportunity of at least palli-
ating the harshness of her refusal, he said, ' All that is past may
not be undone ; but, for the future, I offer you happiness and power
— power such as no other upon earth can ever bid you share. And
what do you resign ? I ask you but to give up a lover already
weary of your charms : one, too, whose power trembles in his
grasp ; and, safe and far above the reach of harm, to dwell with
me beneath the sheltering wings of Rome, all-powerful, uncon-
trolled. A mighty sacrifice I ask !— and yet you turn away.
Rosamond, listen to me ! think upon my love, and grant the prayer
of one who never prayed till now 1 Angel in woman's form ! I
kneel and worship you. Give me but one soft look, — speak but
one gentle word, — one word of lovo is all that I implore.*

**As he spoke, his voice sank into tones of the deepest tender-
ness; and, throwing himself upon his knees before her, he attempted
to take her hand, but she started back more in horror than in fear,
and boldly answered, —

•* * No, no, I tell you, no ! In vain you pray. No word of love
for you shall ever pass my lips. The thought is hateful to my very
soul. I may have sinned ; I have sinned ; and too late I see how
deep and deadly was that sin which even you counselled and
approved. I gave my heart with honesty and truth. I gave it
once, and that once was for ever. I may not take it back, and
even if danger threatens, even if he I love prove false, sooner than
be the vile thing you would make me, lot me die ! Let me,* she
continued, passionately clasping her hands and raising them to

164 No Popery Novels, [Sept.

hoayen, *oli, gracious God! oh. Virgin Mother! who from thj
throne lookest down upon mj sorrow and mj sin, let mo be sooner
numbered with the dead than break the yows I trulj made before
thee. Let me die faithful to liim I love. '

" ' Impious girl,' cried Becket, starting to his feet and drawing
his cloak closely round him, ' profane not the holj name of God bjr
thus calling upon Him to sanction your crime.'

** 'A crime !* answered Rosamond steadily, and turning her eyes
slowly and even calmly upon the face of Becket, Hill now it was
no crime. False priest, vile counsellor, 1 know you now ! I scorn
and hate you from my very soul.'

*' If Rosamond was beautiful in lier native tenderness, that
beauty was increased ten-fold under the influence of the exciting
passions of anger and contempt. Her eyes flashed, and her form
actually seemed to dilate, as she stood erect with one hand pointed
towards her hearer, as though passing sentence upon a culprit. The
magnificence of her beauty had never before so struck upon the
vibrating senses of the baffled and unmasked traitor before her ;
and in a voice where the passion of love strongly contended with
that of rage, he exclaimed, —

** * Rash girl, if not on me, have pity on yourself. Listen to me«
or dread my vengeance, and despair.'

•* * Never ! the one I loathe, the other I defy,' was her midannted
reply, with a look of aversion that cut Becket to the soul.

•**Once more,' he said in a deep and solemn voice, 'I bid you
pause ere you decide.'

" 'I Aave decided,' answered Rosamond firmly, and folding her
arms upon her breast ; ' vengeance is yours ; you can but take mj
life.'

*• * Ila ! say you so ?' he exclaimed, maddened to fury by the
unutterable scorn with which, from the first, her every word had
been spoken. ' Then is your doom decreed. Nor heaven nor hell
shall turn me from my path. The world shall crumble into dast
ore my avenging hand be staved. Others shall feel its weighty but
drop by drop your heart's blood shall be poured upon the wound
you have made here,'

*< He struck his breast violently as he spoke, and his face was
livid with rage, as he added in a voice of thunder, * Look to thyself
King Henry ! Thy throne is tottering beneath thy weight ! Queen
Eleanor, I release thee from thy vow ! And you, unhappy girl,
author of all this woe, you have defied my power, scorned my love^
and called down Heaven's vengeance on your head. May it light
upon you, and there rest for ever. I bade you once ' beware/ and
now 1 bid you * tremble.' '

*' The tone in which he spoke these words fell upon the heart of
Rosamond with a fearful chill ; but she did not move or withdraw
her calm and steadfast gaze from his face, which had assumed the
most diabolical expression of rage and malice.

1851.] No Popery Navels. 165

** In a moment after he had spoken, he folded his cloak around
him, and disappeared in the forest" — vol. iii, pp. 55 — 62,

But the charge against this writer does not end here.
Thus far, perhaps, it might be contended, that no one is
bound to accept the Catholic view of the character of Thomas
a Becket, and that to attribute to him motives such as those
imputed by the passages which we have extracted, is but
to exercise the privilege of free criticism to which every
student of history is entitled. But what shall be said if it
appear, that not only is the narrative such as it appears in
her pages, not founded upon the real facts of the case, but
on the contrary, is a gross and wilful misrepresentation of
them in every important particular, especially in those
which are most unfavourable to the memory of St.
Thomas.

We shall not dwell upon the part of her statement which
regards his personal character. Many other protestant
writers before her have charged him with ambition, with
spiritual pride, ^nd with the design of elevating the Church
above the State. But there is none whom she has not far
outstripped in her imputation of the base personal motives,
and of the sordid and grovelling hypocrisy to which she
ascribes all his exercise of religion. Even Hume, the
most unscrupulous of them all, confesses that ** no man
who enters into the genius of the age, can reasonably
doubt this prelate's sincerity,"'^ and avows that even his
most secret and confidential letters display, ** in all his
retainers, no less than in himself, the most entire and
absolute conviction of the piety of their cause.*' ^ This how-
ever, is but a minor injustice in comparison with the foul
and hideous accusation which the above extracts disclose —
the charge of having prostituted his sacred office for the
purpose of pandering to the bad passions of the king ; of
naving employed the influence of the confessional itself, in
order to betray into the lustful hands of Henry, a young and
confiding girl, his ward, and oven his penitent; and in the
end of having sought to seduce her, fallen as she was through
his arts, to his own unhallowed love ! Now will the reader
believe that this entire story is not only utterly without
the shadow of historical probability, but is clearly opposed

♦ i. 457.

166 No Popery Novels. [Sept

in all its parts to the plainest facts of the history— facta
which it is impossible to suppose unknown to the writer of
these hideous calumnies.

I. There is not a shade of reason for connecting St.
Thomas at all with the history of Rosamond, nor does
any writer of the time, even those who were most opposed
to his policy, even hint at the idea.

II. This connexion is not only unsupported by evi-
dence, but is utterly at variance with the known and
imquestioned facts of the case.

(1.) Thomas a Beckct never was prior of Sevemstoke;
and what is far more important, he never, prior to his ele-
vation to the see of Canterbury, could have acted as the
director of a convent of nuns, or a confessor in any capar
city whatsoever, for the simple reason that, until that time,
he was not a priest at all. It is as notorious^ as any
fact could possibly be, that during the time of his favour
at court, he was simply a deacon, and there is the less
excuse for ignorance of this prominent fact, inasmuch
as it was made an objection to his elevation even by
himself. The assertion, therefore, that he was the con-
fessor of Rosamond Clifford, is a pure invention, which
can have no object except to blacken his name and
render it odious.

(2.) It is well known that Becket was^ not named
chancellor till the year 1157 ; and it is during his occu-
pancy of that oflfice, that he is represented as having
sought by this base compliance to secure himself in tihe
king's good graces. Now Rosamond's connexion with
the king was several years anterior to this date.

(3.) For Rosamond was the mistress of Henry, and
the mother of his children, years before ThonuM a
JBecket appeared at the court at all, or even was known
to the king. Her eldest son, William, was bom not
only before Becket's introduction at Court, but even
before Henry's accession itself, and while he ipias still
Duke of Normandy. Even the youngest, GeoflFrey, must
have been born about the time of his father's accession,
lor he was older than Prince Henry, the son of Eleanor,
wlio was born a few months after his father[s coronation,*

(4.) The direct charge of immorality against Thomas a

* Lingard, li. 304.

1851.] No Popery Novels. 167

Becket himself, one, too, of so hateful a character, is
equally opposed to all the evidence of history. Even the
most inveterate of his enemies never ventured to cast the
shadow of such an imputation upon him. And in this
work it is the more unjustifiable, inasmuch as it is used
for the purpose of palliating the crime of his murder, by
representing it as an act of vengeance on the part of the
lover of Hosamond, Randulph de Broc. The noble and
generous character ascribed to this De Broc, by-the-bye,
who is described by the contemporary historians, as homi-
nem scelestum totius malitice incentorem, is another
example of this writer's flagrant dishonesty. It is meant,
of course, to heighten the infamy of the Archbishop by the
contrast.

And this is given to the public as history, or, at least,
founded upon history ! First, that Becket Was the confes-
sor of Rosamond Clifford ; secondly, that, as her confes-
sor, he, for his own base ends, persuaded her to become
the mistress of Henry ; thirdly, that at the price of the
surrender of her estate, he absolved her, and permitted her
to continue to live with the king ; fourthly, that he after-
wards attempted to attach her to himself in unholy love ;
and fifthly, that in revenge of her rejection of his suit, he
sought and compassed her ruin by the basest and most
sacrilegious measures, whereas not only is there no
evidence, or seeming^ evidence, for any such assertions ;
but on the contrary, it is perfectly certain that he never
could have been her confessor at all ; that she was the
mistress of Henry for many years before Becket was ever
known to the king, and that the rest of the charge is con-
futed by the unanimous admission of even the deadliest
enemies of the Archbishop's fame !

If such be this writer's arts for the purpose of blacken-
ing the character of St. Thomas, we may easily antici-
pate that equal pains are taken to exalt Henry in the
contrast.

"Well had that most sagacious prelate, Theobald, Archbishop of
Canterbury, decided, when ho pointed to Becket as the man of the
day, and gave him to Henry, in order that the King should no
longer see with his own eyes ; — for, in his heart, Theobald dreaded
both the talents and decision of Henry ; and to guide is sometimes
Burer than to subdue. The monarch, iivhose only weaknesses were
.those of the heart, fell at once into the snare. The peculiar nature

168 No Popery Novels. [Sept.

of Ilenrj was chieflj the causo of this. Courteous, ciYilized, and
refined, he stood as it were alone in advance not only of his follow-
ers, but of his nation, and of his age. Learned, accomplished, and
clover^ he slione as a star before tlie world at a time when brute
force and personal bravery were the qualities on which alone the
mass of society prided itself. Added to this, Henry had beauty,
grace, and wit, and a softness of manner which endeared him to all
who knew him ; and formed a striking contrast in a character pos-
sessing such undaunted courage and quick determination. The
one weak point in his nature was his too groat attachment to
favourites, — a foible very natural to those whos^e rank isolates them,
and, in a great measure, deprives them of the social ties that, to a
loving heart, make up the sum of human happiness. To a great
warmth of affection, Henry united a steadiness of friendship and
tenderness, rarely to be found in impetuous natures. Passion
influenced every feeling ; and in love, friendship, or hatred, he
equally abandoned himself to the full force of tho sentiment.
There was, however, a generositj in his very faults, that endeared
him to all ; a trustfulness that could not fail to raise the object of
it in their own estimation, and which none but a vicious heart
could accept and then betray." — (vol. i. pp. 216, 217)

Who will recognize from this charming portrait the man
who is described by his contemporaries, and even by his
friends, as lea, autleone truculentior ; whose " equal ia
lying was never witnessed ;'* who professed without dis-
guise, that it was " better to be guilty of falsehood, than to
fail in a favourite object;'* whose "eves, in the paroxysms
of his passion, became spotted with blood; his countenance
seemed as a flame : his hands, in impotent fury, sought to
destroy every object within his reach, and when he was not
able to do more mischief, would sit down and gnaw the
very straw upon the floor ''? To have thrown in these, or
any similar shadows, would ^ have been to deprive the
hideous and revolting portrait of his .intagonist of the
advantage to be derived from the contrast; and therefore
Henry is represented all that is perfect, endued with eveiy
grace of person, and ennobled by every eminent and
attractive quality of mind !

It will readily be believed, too, that the monks and the
monastic institute are not allowed to escape without a
lash. There is a coarse and disgusting copy of the well-
known scene in Ivanhoe, between Cocur de Lion and the
Clerk of Copmanhurst, so coarse, that we could hardly
have believed it came from a female pen. But as it is

1851.] No Popery Novels. 169

evidently a favourite with the author, it would not be jus-
tice to suppress it.

"•Not one of them recognised the King, who, enjoying their
surprise, and the stealthy looks they cast upon their half-finished
feast, advanced -quite close to him who seemed by his age and the
golden cross he wore to be the chief amongst them, and said, —

'• * Holy brothers, if it be not too bold to intrude thus into your
greenwood refectory, I would fain crave the courtesjr of a cup of
wine V

" • Wine !* echoed Brother Boniface, — who, although no less a
person than the prior of the order, was by far the most inebriated »
— • we have no wine ! have we brother Auselm V

•••Wine!' glibly replied Anselm, 'the saints forbid! Holy
Mother of God, protect us from such a sin ! We are poor monks
of Saint Swithin, bound to fasting and to prajer. By the Holy
Rood, we have no wine ! A little water from the rock, and a crumb
of bread, is all we have to offer, mo.st worshipful knight/

•* • The lying knaves !* exclaimed Henry, in a low voice to Leices-
ter, as he fixed his keen glance upon the portly form of Anselm,
whose small grey eyes were twinkling in the hope of having deceived
his hearer. • If not wine then,' added the King, in a louder tone,
• a cup of ale, or a little hippocras, or mead, holy brothers, if per-
mitted by your laws ?'

•• • Alas ! alas ! we have neither,' answered the unblushing
Anselm. ' Hippocras and mead are for the dwellings of the rich ;
we poor sinners must fast and pray. By the Holy Star of Beth-
lehem, what I tell you is the truth. We have no wine ; unless,
indeed/ he added, quickly, as he marked the movement of Gaultier
de Saint Clair, who, with malice in every laughing feature, was
stealing towards the only one of the leathern bottles that still
remained upright, ' unless there should remain some drops of the
mulberry juice with which we sometimes temper the water for
the good father Boniface, who is old and feeble.'

•• * Feeble, very feeble !' mumbled Boniface, catching his own
name ; and he rubbed his hands and folded them on his enormous
stomach, and hung his head with a helpless expression of drunken
stupidity.

•• • Noble knight.* said brother Basil, one of the younger of the
friars, who now advanced close to the King, and looked intently
upon the beautiful hawk that he carried, • if it be not too bold,
might we crave your assistance, or that of some of your valiant
followers, in a little matter that we have on hand V

•• * Speak on, my brother,' replied the King, laughing, as he
turned his eyes upon the well-fed, but somewhat more candid-look-
ing countenance now upraised to his ; ' the mulberry-juice, I see,
has done you no harm. We soldiers of the Cross are ever ready to
help or comfort you holy men of God. Speak on, and say in what

170 No Popery Novels: [Sept.

we may serve you. But first toll me — what do you here io this lone
angle of the forest V

" * We are poor monks of St. Swithin,' replied brother Basil,
with the habitual whine ; ' and we go to Woodstock to deliTer a
petition to the King. We did but tarry here for a few moments to
eat a morsel of bread ; for the body needs strength to do the work
of the soul. We would crave of you, noble knight, to tell us which
way his grace may be most easily approached, for the ear of King
Henry is never closed to the voice of liis faithful subjects ; and we,
the poor monks of St. Swithin, yield to none in reverence and devo*
tion to our good King. May the holy Saints keep his soul in safety
here and hereafter !*

** * My good friend,' said Henry, whose patience began to wax
short ; * if this is all your care, we are ^ell met — I am the King !*
*' At these words, the consternation of the friars became ludi-
crous. Those who were standing, attempted to kneel ; while such
as were lying down, tried to get up ; but almost all failed in the
endeavour, and the ground was immediately strewn with the ill-
fated monks thus suddenly called upon to display their loyalty in
the midst of their potations. They struggled and scrambled ; their
bald heads knocking together as each endeavoured to support him-
self by his neighbour. Very few, however, succeeded in raising
themselves to a becoming position ; and Henry, whose good-natnre
in such cases was equal to his severity in others, put himself in his
usual attitude half on one side of his horse, and laughed till he
made the woods echo to his voice.

** At last, addressing brother Basil, who alone seemed to have
retained his composure, he said, —

" * It is well, my brother ; but since we already know some of
each other's secrets, tell me at onco the prayer of your petition ?
The merry greenwood may serve us this once for a council-cham-
ber, as well as our castle walls.'

** * Father Boniface hath the petition, so please you, my lord,'
observed Anselm, very uneasily, — at the same time seizing tight
hold of the gown of tho prior, in the vain hope of keeping him
steady on his feet.

** • Speak ! — one, or all of you,' vociferated Henry impatiently,
and with a slight tone of contempt ; — then, turning to Basil, be
added, * if you know for what you pray ; for I see good father
Boniface could scarce read his lesson. The mulberry-juice this hot
day was over sweet for tho holy prior ! *

** * My lord,' said brother Basil, without hesitation, ' we, the poor
monks of St. Swithin, are aggrieved and oppressed. Penitence and
privation are our portion ; but we cannot exist upon air. Our daily
food is withdrawn ; and cruelly we are left to starve. Henry, bishop
of Winchester, is our oppressor ; he has taken from us three of our
dishes. Gracious monarch, restore to us our dinner, — we ask no

1 85 1 .] No Popery Novels. 1 7 1

more ; and the poor moHks of St. Swithiii will praj for jour kiuglj
soul I'

" ' And how many dishes has the bishop left jou, good brother V
asked the King, gravely.

" 'Twentj-seven, and no more/ replied brother Basil, in a tone
80 doleful and despairing, that Henry again laughed in his face." —
vol. ii. pp. 198—205.

Caricatures such as these, however, coarse and offensive
as they certainly are, may be treated with indifference.
They bear with them their own antidote, and at the most
they can affect but weak and prejudiced minds. But it is
the artful and circumstantial slander, dressed out in
elaborate detail, and presented with all the parade or pre-
tence of history, this is it that excites our indignation.
From this there is no escape, or, at least, escape is very diffi-
cult. It is by such slanders as these, put forward time
after time in every variety of form, and with every variety
of circumstance, in history, poetry, romance, and philoso-
phy, that the mind of England is held closed agamst the
admission, or even the very contemplation, of the truth.

And for a certain class of minds the plausible romance
is perhaps the most dangerous weapon. The constant
and unvaried repetition of the same statements of a
serious character, a hundred times refuted, and repeated
for the hundred-and-first time as confidently as though
they had never been called into question, has a ten-
dencj^, no doubt, to blunt and harden the power of
perceiving the truth when presented ; but ^ the effijct of
these hacknied ^ calumnies is faint and inconsiderable
in comparison with that of a sustained and elaborate lie,
invested with all the attraction of romance, and carried
out through all the details of an exciting story. Even
the Catholic mind may hardly find itself proof against such
an influence, and in the case of those whose knowledge of
Catholic principles is derived entirely from without, it is
impossible to estimate the strength and permanence of the
false impressions which cannot fail to be produced. Nor,
however lightly we may be disposed to think of the influ-
ence of such a book as *' The Lady and the Priest*' upon
the educated and reflecting, is it without sincere and
sorrowful anxiety we can contemplate the startling fact,
that in a time of such excitement as that through which
we have just been passing, this book has run, within the

173 Essays of an Octogenarian. — Janies Roche. [Sept

course of a few months, through several successive
editions. This fact alone will suffice to shew of what
material the anti-papal agitation of 1851 was composed.

Art. VII. — Easays Crlficdl and Misctllaneous, bj an OcrooENARiAV,
2 vols. Printed bj G. Nash. Cork, 1851.

SOME of these Essays are old acquaintances, having
already appeared in our pages. Others are contribu-
tions to several of our literary cotemporaries. Many of
the pages consist of matter entirely new, but all are wor-
thy of being read and read again, and we^ are rejoiced to
see them collected and preserved in their present form,
even though it be but for private circulation. The lot of
those who contribute to our periodical literature, is one
attended with numerous disadvantages, not to tho public,
but to themselves. The secrecy which shields an author's
mediocrity or faults from censure, deprives genius and
erudition of their merited applause. We know that to
minds of a high order, and influenced by high^ motives,
the applause of men is either unheeded or despised, as a
motive of action, but as an indication that their labours
have not been unattended with success, it must ever be an
object of interest cind anxiety. The great majority, how-
ever, of those who write for the instruction or entertain-
ment of the public, expect the meed of its approbation,
and are sustained under the pressure of their nitellectual
exertion, more by the cheering hope of fame, than of
pecuniary reward. The public knows them and admires
them, and to many an author's ears there is no music so
sweet, no stimulant so exciting, as the expression of its
praise. But except in a few rare instances, or in a veiy
small circle, the anonymous contributor to the pages of
our periodical literature will seldom receive the reward of
fame. The public will seldom seek to raise the veil with
which the writer conceals his person and character, from

1851.] Essays of an Octogenarian. — James Roche. 173

all except the responsible editor of the journal ; and the
author of the brilliant article, or the crushing argument,
or even the touching strain of poetry, must often remain
unknown, unless the person most interested be himself a
party to the discovery. We do not deny, indeed, that
anonymous writing has not also its advantages. Into the
general question it is by no means our intention to enter.
The subject has been very ably discussed in France with-
in this last twelvemonths, and a law passed by the
National Assembly now obliges all authors to sign their
names to such articles, at least of a political ten-
dency, as they shall insert in the public journals.
Whether the experiment shall attain its object, and curb
in any degree the licentiousness of the Parisian press,
remains yet to be discovered.

It is fortunate at least for the young aspirant of lite-
rary fame, that such a regulation does not exist among
ourselves- It is a bold and hazardous attempt enouarh
for the adventurous tyro, to present himself as a candi-
date for public acceptance, and enter the field where
fame and perhaps fortune are to be won, even with his
vizor closely drawn, and marshalled in the ranks with
others like himself. ^ If he had to march boldly and singly
into the arena, with his name and armorial bearing
openly engraved upon his scutcheon, it is more than
probable, that' i^allant and gifted though he be, he would
shrink back with terror irom the very publicity of his
first appearance. But when he has ti-ied his maiden pen,
when he has been accustomed to see himself in print, when
he has heard the whispered compliment or the open eulogy,
and been encouraged by those whose opinions he values
and whose character he reveres, the attempt to claim a
place in the literary ranks will be made with more confi-
dence and energy, and therefore with a greater probability
of success. It was thus that Brougham, and Jeffrey, and
many others equally illustrious, whom we could name,
began, and trained themselves for that high degree of emi-
nence which they subsequently attained.

It is time that we come back to the author of the Essays
before us. Whatever timidity may have attended his
first efforts, and we take it for granted that he was not
exempted from the common faiUng (if it be a failing) of
humanity, has long since disappeared, the incognito whicli
it suggested has been long more than half laid aside, A

174 Essays of an Oclogenarian, — Jamets Roche. [SepL

real and distinct personage we get a glimpse of, though
still in a kind of crepuscular obscurity, in the " J. R. of
Cork,'* whose most mteresting correspondence has oftea
riveted attention in some half-dozen periodicals, and
though in the literary world his name and real character
have been no secret for many years, yet now that he has
reached the period of life granted to so very few, full of
years and labours, we see no reason why those who have
been instructed and delighted by his writings, should still
be ignorant that they are indebted for them to Mr. James
Roche, of Cork, now, as the title of his book declai*es, a
venerable octogenarian.

Mr. Roche was born in Limerick eighty years ago, and
of a family that ranked high in wealth and worth amongst
their fellow-citizens. Whether they were connected with,
or descended from the Lords Roche of Fennoy is not
clearly ascertained ; it is certain that they are descended
from the Hon. Mr. Roche, who was one of the assembled
delegates at the confederation of Kilkenny. A good deal
of his family history and connections is made known to us
in his Essays, as, for instance, speaking of the family of
Stack pole,

"The Stackpole family of Strongbonian origin, has long stood ia
tho first lino of respectability in the county of Clare. ludoed the
Count was usually distinguished as Lord George, having some pre*
tensions to the peerage of La Zouche. My father*s maternal
descent was from the same stock. The husband of his grand-
daughter, Mr. Cornelius O'Brien, was one of the memberd for the
County : and its late High Sheriff, her son, my great nephew, Mr.
John O'Brien, represents the city of Limerick, succeeding ia that
position my brother, Mr. William Roche.'* — Vol. ii. p. 227, note.

During the last century, and indeed from the period of
the treaty of Limerick, all posts of trust and emolumeut
were closed to Irish Catholics at home, and those who
believed, or knew that they were fit for something else thau
hewing wood or drawing water, had to repair to other
countries in search of honour and distinction. Several of
Mr. Roche's family entered into the military service, and
])lace<i their swords at the disposal of the French and
the Austrian governments. At the battle of Kunersdorff,
the great Frederick had a narrow escape of being made
prisoner by an uncle, Thady O'Brien, then an officer
under tho Austrian Commander, Landon. O'Brien seized

1851.] Essays of an Octogenarian. — James Roche, 175

his majesty's horse, as he fled in terror from the field of
battle, and held him firmly by the bridle, until his arm,
disabled by a pistol shot, the ball of which was never after
extracted, was forced to loose its hold, and with it the
honour and emolument of bringing in the monarch captive.

It was not alone that places of trust and honour were
withheld from Irish Catholics in those times, but it is quite
unnecessary to say that the knowledge which would have
fitted them for these places was withheld also. An emi-
nent writer has observed *'that in order that the Irish should
be oppressed with impunity, it was necessarv that they
shoula be first degraded.*^ Hence the schoolmaster was
deemed the enemy of the State, legal enactments were made
against him, and a price was set upon his head. He and the
priest were both outlaws and criminals together. A respec-
table clergyman, vicar-general of the diocese in which the
writer of this article resides, and who is not many years
deceased, was wont to tell how, when he was at school,
learning the classics and preparing himself for the priest-
hood, it was always the custoni for one of the boys to stand
sentry upon a neighbouring eminence, lest any of the agents
of power in those days should come upon them unawares.
Each boy in his turn stood watchman, while the other were
employed in study. It is not wonderful that Providence
should visit upon the English government and people the
crimes of their forefathers, and that by a just retribution,
the question of Education in Ireland should be one of it^
greatest difficulties, and one of the most difficult problems
of its legislation.

At the period of which we now speak, there was no edu-
cational establishment in Ireland for respectable Roman
Catholics. The guardians of Mr. Roche, therefore, deter-
mined to send him to France, as was then the custom, and
where he had numerous acquaintances and fellow-country-
men. The college of Saintes was selected for the purpose.
This town is charmingly situated on the banks of the
Charente, about twenty-five leagues north-east from Bor-
deaux. Though it has been long neglected, and is verging
slowly to decay, it was once the flourishing capital of the
Santones, a warlike people of Aquitain, from whom it
derives its name, and even to this day boasts ofrone of the
choicest specimens of Roman antiquity in tolerably fair
preservation. It is an arch, erected by the Santones, in
memory of Germanicus, and as, from the change that time

176 Essays of an Octogenarian. — James Roche. [Sept.

has made in the river's bed, it now occupies the very mid-
dle of the bridge, though it formerly stood upon the bank,
every traveller who enters the town is aflfbrded an oppor-
tunity of seeing its fair proportions. The college of Saintes
was conducted by the Jesuits, but on their suppression wm
transferred to other hands. It was still, however, effici-
ently conducted when Mr. Roche was sent there for in-
struction. He was also placed under the care and pri-
vate tuition of the Abbe Casey, of Irish birth, as his name
abundantly testifies, but long resident abroad. Here he
remained about two years, and made great proficiency in
the several branches of knowledge that were usuallj
taught. If we may judge by the studies to which his
attention was especially directed in after life, we may say
that Classical literature, and the history and languages of
modern Europe, were those most congenial to his taste.
Of the very great proficiency which he attained in these,
we have abundant evidence in the volumes before us.
There is scarcely a classical or even a Latin author with
whose works he does not seem familiar, and from whose
pages he does not quote, with taste and judgment: Wit-
ness the following remarks suggested by the words of
Father Paul Sarpi, ** Esto Perpetua.'*

'* Sarpi's dying ejaculation, in words since of such frequent use
and various application, Esto Ferpetua, allusive it is supposed to
Venice, has not received the sanction of heaven, for

** * The spouseless Adriatic mourns her Lord,' and

_^— . Venice lost, and won

Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done,
Sinks like a sea-weed into whence she rose.'

CniLDE Harold, iv. 11, 13.

" Or in the Classical strains of his countryman, Sannazaro (Elegia
in oper. Aid., 1535, 8vo.), so consonant in object and expression to
the deeply affecting letter of consolation from Servius Sulpicius to
Cicero, on his daughter's death. (Epist. ad fam. Lib. iv. Epist. 5.)

** * Et qneriraur cito si nostras data tempora vitae

Dlffugiunt ! Urbos mors violenta rapit :
Fata traliunt homines ; fatis urgentibus, urbes

Et quodcunque vides auferet ipsa dies.*

** What a contrast with the proud and palmy days of Venice,
which her cTtizens vaunted as the special work of the Most High,
• Opus Excolsi/ and superior to Rome herself !

" * Si Pelago Tybrim prtefers, urbem aspice utramque ;
Illam homines dices, banc posuisse Deos.* — Idem Sannaz.'*

Essays, vol. i. p. 271.

185 1.] Essays of an Octogenarian. — James Roche, 177

And again, with reference to the well known line of
Luccetius, ** Tantuni religio potuit suadere malorum.'*

'* To this often cited line, and the evils it refers to. Cardinal
Folignac, in his Anti Lucretius, opposes the desolating effects of the
Roman Poet's inculcated Atheism, and antithetically concludes the
contrasted enumeration (lib. i. y. 839) thus :

<' * Effera tan turn igitur potuit suadere maforum

Impietas non Religio quae prava coercens

Gorda metu, spe recta favet*

" The poet's philosophj was that of Des Cartes ; but he highly
praises Newton s Optical discoveries, for which our illustrious
countryman addressed him, ' plenam urbanitatis epistolam qu4 se
affirmabat maximo cum desiderio moriturum si Anti- Lucre tium
totius Europse tantopere expetitum legere sibi non contigisset.'
The gratification was not however reserved for Newton, whose
death preceded the publication of the volume by about twenty
years, nor did it appear till after the author's own decease ; though
he had often recited many brilliant parts of it, which made it long
celebrated over Europe. At his last moments, he repeated those
affecting lines of the first book :

" ' Ceu lectum peragrat membris languentibus seger
In latus alternis Isevum dextrumque recumbens
Nee juvat,' &c.

** It was similarly that Lucan 'profluente sanguine ubi frigesceore

pedes manusque, et pauUatim ab extremis cedere spiritum

intelligit,' (says Tacitus, in relating the Poet's death inflicted by
Nero, Annal xv.) ' recordatus carmen a se compositum, quo vulne-
ratum militem per ejusmodi mortis imaginem obiisse tradiderat
versus ipsos retulit, oaque illi voxsuprema fuit.' The verses here
adverted to by the great historian, are generally supposed to be
those of book iii. of the Pharsalia.

" * Scinditur avulsus ; nee sicut vulnere sanguis
Emicuit lentus ; ruptis cadit undique venis,' &c.

** While other commentators consider the lines, 811, of Book ninth
more apposite :

" * Sanguis erant lachrymsD : qusecunque foramina novit

Humor, ab his largus manat cruor,' &c.

" Dante is likewise reported to have applied his own language to
express his dying feelings :

" * Vedrai te simiglianto a quella' nferma
Che non puo trover posa in su lo piurao ;
Ma con dar volta su' dolore schorma,' "

PuRGATORio, Canto vi. 149." — vol. i. p. 199,

^ But it is in the department of French History and
literature that our author made most progress. This
was to be expected from his early associations; and the

VOL. XXXI.-No. LXI. 12

k

178 Essays of an Octogenarian* — James Roche. [Siept

opportunities then afforded him have certainly been turned
to good account. The most out-of-the-way authors^ he
seems to have made acquaintance with, and is perfectly at
home in all the literary gossip and anecdote of the Parisian
world of the last and present century. For a thorough
and intimate knowledge of the French tongue we may De
prepared, but it must have required great reading and
great powers of memory, to have got thus the mastery of
all the minute details, and to have dates and texts almost
at his fingers' ends. His faculty of accurately remember-
ing these particulars is very remarkable, and is exemplified
in a striking manner in the several essays of this publica-
tion. We shall take occasion to refer again to this branch
of our subject. After completing his studies he returned
to Ireland, and after a brief stay he went back again to
France.

This occurred exactly at the period of the first, or as it is
often called, the Great Revolution. France was in a per-
fect fever of excitement. The nation, big with the impend-
ing changes which were then beginning to make them-
selves felt, was troubled for the past, and still more^ trou-
bled for the future, which was presenting itself amid the
brightest hopes of some and the gloomiest anticipations of
others. It was, as events proved, a most adverse time for
the quiet and steady pursuits of industry. The part of the
kingdom which Mr. Roche selected as his abode, was the
birthplace of the once powerful political party of the
Gironde, which promised in the beginning to ,g[uide the
stormy and fitful gusts of the revolutionary spirit with a
skilful and steady hand, but which, unfortunately for itself
and the country that looked up to it with^ hope, proved
unequal to the task, and was ultimately annihilated on the
scaftbld. It is not our business nor purpose here to pro-
nounce an opinion on the Girondins, nor to discuss the
principles of their policy, if such they had ; but we must
reluctantly avow, whatever our admiration of their abilities
may be, which were of a very high order, that we look^ on
their fall as a striking and terrible lesson for any political
party at home or abroad, that may be at any time dis-
posed to compromise the principles of honour and consis-
tency, much less of truth and justice, at the suggestion of
political expediency, or the dictate of popular fanaticisnL
Fassing events in our country may give this lesson a more
pointed significance^ and provo^ that in politics as in com-

1851.] Essays of an Octogenarian. — James Roche. 179

mon life, the old adage holds good, that honesty is always
the best policy iu the end.

Mr. Roche became intimate during his residence at
Bordeaux, with many of those who were subsequently the
most distinguished leaders and members of this party ;
among others, with Vergniaud and Gensonne, with refer-
ence to whom the following recollections will prove inter-
esting. The latter incident is a striking proof of the uncer-
tainty of life in the Parisian world of the day.

" On the king's trial, tbo Girondists, those I mean of the special
department, ten in number, had nearly all declared their firm reso-
lution to protect the royal life, while they sacrificed the regal dig-
nity ; but when brought to the test, in the hour of danger yielding
to fear, that terrible demoralizer of the human spirit, they, with the
single exception of Grangeneuve, who nobly defied the threatening
glance of Robespierre,betrayed their internal conviction, and voted
for their sovereign's death. Vergniaud, too, by far the most elo-
quent of them, or of the Convention at large, and who had ener-
getically opposed and denounced the atrocious commune on all
occasions, pronounced, as president, the fatal sentence. Deeply did
I, to whom in my early days he had shown uniform kindness, on
my visits to him at his residence in the ' Rue St. Catharine,' at
Bordeaux, regret this failure of lieart on so critical an ordeal of his
fortitude. His colleague, Gensonne, with whom I had also been on
terms of acquaintance at his house in the * Rue de trois Conils/
was equally pusillanimous, and followed Vergniaud's example. The
two youngest, Duces and Fonfrdde, had been mere fops. Tho
former, I recollect, wore false calves, to make his legs correspond
with the comparatively greater fulness of his body ; but he was an
excellent dancer, as was likewise his brother-in-law, Fonfrdde, whose
uncle of the same name, (Boyer Fonfrede,) stood pre-eminent in
that accomplishment until surpassed by my friend Tr^nis, who knew
no superior save the ' Dieu de la danso,' as he was distinguished,
the younger Vestris. M. Trenis was a gentleman of fortune, des-
tined for the bar, but the spoiled child of society, from his eminence
as a dancer, which eventually turned his head, and made him an
inmate of a lunatic asylum, where he died. To these few personal
details I shall only add, that on the 28th of May, 1793, I dined at
tho house of M. Vandenyver, my family's banker, in the Rue
Vivienne, near the old Bourse, (or Exchange,) in company with
twelve of the deputies known under the general designation of
Girondins, and chiefs of the class, constituting all together,
including the Vandeny vers, father and son, with myself, the number
of fifteen, and before the year closed one of the Vandenyvers and I
alone survived. Thirteen had fallen under the revolutionary axe !
On the 31st of May and two succeeding days, Robespierre's terrific

k^

180 Essays of an Octogenarian. — Jamets Roche, [Sept

ascendency was established, though on the 28th, his adversariei
the Giroudins, exulted in the assured prospect of their approaching

triumph, as I witnessed." — vol. ii., p. 193.

*

Our author was witness of some of the strange events,
and often of the horrors, that disgraced the Freucli capital
during the reign of terror, as for instance :

" As part of a single day's ensanguined execution, we beheld the
sacrifice of eleven nuns to the revolutionary Moloch. Martyrs to
their faiti), surely, for their alleged crime was hearing the Mass of i
nonjuring priest. Mournful in the extreme and deeply affecting
was the sight, yet sublime in the contemplation of its inspiriDg
cause, which lent to humble beings, essentially weak in their
nature, an elevation of spirit and fortitude, as wo saw, of endurtDce
unsurpassed, we may truly affirm, by what philosophy could eflEect
or pride assume,

* Prodiga3 vitro, cruore

Purpurataj martyres ;

Auspicata) morto vitam

Pace guadent perpeti.' "

In 1793, Mr. Roche was arrested in Paris as a BritiBh
subject. It was during the reign of teiTor, when scores of
victims wore each day led forth from the prison to the scaf-
fold. It is well known that innocence under Robespierre
and Fouquier Tinville gave no security to the accusea^ and
that many a noble spirit and gallant lover of his countiy
had to lay his head upon the guillotine through the fana-
tical hatred of England. Our author would never have
attained his octogenarian honours, nor would his literary
labours be the subject of our present notice, if the Parisian
public had not been anijxzed one morning with the aston-
ishing and unexpected intelligence that Robespierre was
dead. The public, incredulous at first, when convinced
of the truth became almost delirious with joy. Eveiy
one felt as if a great load that had been long press-
ing upon his heart was taken off, and that at last he
Avas able to breathe freely, without the withering appre-
hension that that breath may be his last. And if the
public at hirge felt thus delighted, how much more must
those have done who for many a long hour, made yet
longer by the constant apprehension of the impending
judgment, for trial there was none, had been pining in
the crowded dungeons of the capital. That was a glo-

1851.] Essays of an Octogenarian. — James Roche. 181

lious morning, indeed, that brought them the cheering
news that Robespierre was dead. Our author felt it, as
did many besides,^ whom it restored to Ufe and liberty
again.

After his liberation, he remained for some time in Paris,
and was a witness of several of the stirriiig scenes that each
day brought with it. Among others Buonaparte's first
appearance in public life, — the defeat of the Sections.

•* Of his first public manifestation in that capital, in October,
1795, when he OTerthrew the Sections armed in ^opposition to the
Conrention, I was witness, and well remember the prognostics
raised on the fearful energy of his conduct on that occasion, when
I had the good fortune to secure a refuge to one of the discomfited
generals and his aide-de-camp, who were concealed at my house in
the south for some days. The general, a connexion of my family,
did not long survive, but the aide-de-camp, since also deceased, had
subsequently served with distinction under Napoleon, and com-
manded the third division of. the invading army against Spain, in
1823, when he was created a peer of France. I moan the late
General Count Bourke, the son of an officer of the Irish Brigade,
who WAS made prisoner with his countryman, the unfortunate Lally,
at Pondicherry, for the surrender of which Lally was executed, in
1766."— vol. ii., p. 187.

During the few years that followed his liberation from
captivity, our author seems to have passed his time, pro-
bably in the pursuit of his mercantile profession, between
Paris and Bordeaux. An anecdote of his personal history
during his residence^ at the latter place, will give our
readers a remarkable instance of the vicissitudes of popular
favour, and show them how the hated of one generation
may become the hero of the next. The subject of the
anecdote is no less a personage than General Washington.

"The citizens of the United States never fail, it is known, to
celebrate the 4th of July, the anniversary of their declared inde-
pendence of the British Crown. In 1706, we assisted by special
invitation, at Bordeaux, to commemorate the day ; when after a
few early toasts a rotmd of rascals was proposed, not then an
unwonted practice, and at their head, with curses loud and deep,
was pronounced the name of George Washington ! A French
general and ourselves were the only alien guests. He made some
observation expressive of surprise, which was answered by the
chairman in terms of insult ; fortunately not sufficiently understood
to cause the usual conse(][uencos, which we averted by a very soft-

182 Essays of an Octogenarian, — James Rocfuf*^ [Sept

ened intorpretation of tlio words. We had ourselves deolined the
toast, but unnoticed. Tlie chairmau, a Mr. Russell, was subse-
quently employed in various diplomatic missions." — yol. ii., p. 77-

About the close of the last century, Mr. ^ Hoche
deemed it advisable to transfer his capital and business^ to
Ireland; and after some time, spent probably in makinjf
the necessary preparations, he commenced business in
Cork, as a banker, in partnership with his brother. When
the Catholics, after the disappointment of the Union, and
of the hopes of emancipation held out to them at that
period, began to agitate the question, our author took a
very promment part in every eflfort for the purpose. His
character, position in society, and mental acc^uirements,

{)ointed him out as one who was fit to give efficient aid to
lis fellow-countrymen for this purpose. He was a frequent
if not a constant chairman at all the public meetings held
in his neighbourhood, to agitate and promote the measure
of Catholic emancipation, and one of the oldest reminis-
cences of the writer of this notice, is to have seen him in
this capacity at a Catholic meeting in the chapel of SS.
Peter and Paul, in the city of Cork.

It may be very well supposed, from what we have
already said, that our author did not, during the whole of
this period, neglect his literary pursuits. Neither the
engrossing nature of his professional engagements, nor the
exciting moments of political exertion, prevented him from
those more agreeable enjoyments which he derived from
his favourite authors, llis residence in one of the most
beautiful situations of the many that constitute the
delightful scenery of the Cork river, was well stocked with
the choicest treasures of literary genius. His selection of
books was made with great taste and judgment, and^ there
were few sales of literary works of excellence at which he
was not a frequent and often a successful bidder ; and it
was not by the mere rarity of the volume which has so
often led the buyer to extravagance, that his choice was
determined, but by the intrinsic value of the article. An
anecdote is related by himself of an incident that occurred
at an auction of books in Dublin, which, as we are treating
on this matter, is worth mentioning :

•* In tlio year 1800, immediately after the sale of Mr. SteTenB*8
library, whore were first exhibited, I believe, those emulative con-
tests for the early 4to. editions of Shakspere, which succeeding jean

1851. J Essays of an Octogenarian. — James Roche. 183

hare rather inflamed than moderated, I met Mr. John Kemble in
Dublin, at the auction of Provost Murray's books, bj Mr. Mercier,
in Anglesea Street. While waiting for Mr. Mercier's arrival, the
GentlenMLYis Magazine for May, just then received, was looked into by
a person present, who astonished at the prices therein stated to have
been given for six detached plajs of Shakspere, (£158. 4:S,) exclaimed,
* Who were the madmen guilty of such extravagance V * I, Sir/
said Kemble, rising from his seat * tore sic orsus ab alto,' with the
solemn dignity of mien and lofty assumption of manner that charac-
terized him : * I, Sir, am one of those unhappy wights who appear
so insanely indifferent to the value of money.' And resuming his
seat, he scarcely noticed the anxious apologies of the unwitting and
abashed offender." — vol. i., p. 286.

We should have stated, that Mr. Roche married, in
1793, a daughter of Mr. John Moytan, of Cork, and a
relation of the Romaii Catholic Bishop of Cork of that
name, by whom he had two children ; and amid the en-
joyments of home, devoted to his amiable and inter-^
esting family, and dividing his time between his profes-
sional engagements and his literary pursuits, our author
would have been content to spend the remainder of his life.
Though not an old man, he yet had seen and suffered too
much of the world not to value the priceless blessings of
happiness and repose. And yet, though he had suffered
much already, he was still doomed to suffer more, and a
dark cloud, big with misfortune, was already breaking over
his hopes and home. The year 1819 was one of much mer-
cantile embarrassment. It is not for us to enter into the
detail of the various causes, financial and social, which pro-
duced or accelerated the ciisis. It was most calamitous for
Mr. Roche and for his brother ; and through their failure it
was calamitous for thousands. To satisfy the necessities
and legal claims of his creditors, his personal and other
property was sold. His books, that formed the solace of
many a tedious hour, were all brought to the hammer.
"We know not but a small portion was preserved by the
kind care and solicitude of his friends, but with this excep-
tion all was disposed of, and the owner, who a few^ days
before was in the enjoyment of every worldly happiness,
was left penniless, and comparatively a* pauper. It was
well that he had read the philosophers of Athens and Rome
to some purpose ; and better still that he accustomed him-
self during life to the hopes and consolations of that gospel

184 Essays of an Octogenarian. — James Rochen [SepC

without which the philosophy of Athens and of Rome would
be of very little service.

For some time after this occurrence, Mr. Roche had to
bear up with all the difficulties usually consequent on
reverses of fortune. But time, that great healer of human
maladies, mental and bodily, the aid of kind friends, and
his own energies, gradually removed the pressure of afflic-
tion, and though not in affluence, he is at present, we
believe, in a position of comfortable independence, and able
to devote himself, without impediment, to those intellec-
tual pursuits which have been the great solace and enjoy-
ment of his leisure hours. It is since then, also, wc
believe, that he has written nearly all the essays contained
in the two volumes before us. Some of these have already ,
appeared in our own pages, and the remainder have been
addressed to other periodicals ; among the rest, that most
venerable of them all, *' The Gentleman's Magazine.''
They are principally devoted to subjects of literary and
historical criticism, and in their present form we are glad
to find that several points have been re-considered, some
remarks suppressed, and much new and valuable matter
added, where necessary, in explanation or in proof. We
have, on the whole, rarely seen so much of valuable criti-
cism and of interesting historical matter contained within
the same compass. It is our intention to leave such of our
readers as are not familiar with our author's style and
writings, to judge for themselves, but where or what to
choose, or where to begin, wq know not. The variety of
topics is so great, and the choice is so embarrassing, that
we begin almost at random with the following particulars
of the French philosopher, J. J. Rousseau.

'< To the unerring proofs of a diseased intellect, his admiring
friend adds several more, affirmative of the melancholy fact. Thiu.
told that his opera, * Le dcvin du village/ had been applauded, be
imagined that it was tlie more firmly to fix on him the impeachment
of some ideal plagiarism, and to aggravate the imputation the valiie
of the theft is exaggerated, he said. When about to leave England,
the wind happening to be adverse, ho thought it a mere device for
detaining him there, at the request of the French minister, Choisenl.
* Les soup9ons,' says his friend, * se multipliaient, et prennaient un
caracttJre. de veritable folie.* He even suspected his wife : * D'Atw
du complot et de 8*entcndre avcc ses ennemis.' Indeed, he wai
conscious afterwards that his reason had then fled ; but that the
latter years of his life were clouded more or less bj recurring insa-

J 85 1 .] Essays of ah Octogenarian, — James Roche. 185

pity is beyond contradiction. Just before embarking, on his depar*
ture from England, he harangued the assembled populace in
French, of which thej were as ignorant as he was of English.

" Viola la Science

Immense
D'un Savant de France

Qui r^ve en plein midi !

** In fact, at an earlier date, Madame D'Epinay in her ' Memoires'
tells us, that observing him seemingly absorbed in some remorseful
retrospect, she attempted to console him by the assurance that his
errors were not those of the heart. * Where, good Madame, have
you discovered that ?' bluntly replied Rousseau. ' Know then once
for all, that I was born, and am of a perverse nature (vicieux). You
can hardly conceive the pain it costs me to do good, and how little
to act wrongly ; and to prove that I speak the truth, learn that I
cannot help hating my benefactors.' And yet, as already seen, this
unhappy being challenges mankind to produce at the last great day
his superior in virtue ! But his mental and bodily infirmities
concurrently affecting his frame, the growing debility attracted
general notice, and excited deep commiseration for -the obvious
decline of so gifted a person. Invitations would have flowed in on
him, if it were expected that ho would accept them, but his medical
friend, Doctor de Presle, induced him to embrace that of M. de
Girardin, whose son, the General of that name, was the father, but
not by marriage, of Emile de Girardin, the well known proprietor
of the Newspaper, * La Presse.' This gentleman possessed a charm-
ing residence at Ermenonville, within a dozen miles to the north of
Paris, where Rousseau, accompanied by his wife Therese, arrived
the 20th of May, 1778, and for a short interval antecedent to his
decease, appeared delighted with the place, as well as with his host,
to whose son he gave some few lessons in Botany, suited to a boy of
ten. In after years, this son fondly boasted of having been Jean
Jacques's pupil, which however could not have extended much be-
yond a month, for on the 3rd of the ensuing month Rousseau died.
At first it was rumoured by suicide, but the medical report pro-
nounced and apparently proved, the death a natural one. The
body was, by his own desire, interred in a romantic spot of the
^domain called L'ile des peupliers, where M. de Girardin raised a
mausoleum to his memory ; but on the llth of October, 1794, tho
remains, in despite of M. de Girardin's remonstrances, were trans
ferred to the Pantheon by a decree of the National Convention, and
BtilJ repose there, together with those of Voltaire and other * great
men to whom their grateful country,' as the inscription on the pedi-
ment expresses it, has devoted the beautiful edifice, originally a
Church dedicated to the patroness of Paris, St. Genevieve. The
inscription just mentioned was suggested by M. Pastoret. A statue
has also been erected to Rousseau at Geneva, in expiation, we may

186 Essays of an Octogenarian. — James Roche. [Sept

presume, of the persecution he had to eadure from its goremorSf
during life.'* — Vol. i. p. 155.

Bonaparte seems not to have had any exalted opinion of
Rousseau, nor of his fellow-labourer in the same caase^
Voltaire, as we find from the following remarks.

*' * Vous aimez Voltaire,' said the Emperor to mj accomplished
friend, the grand Master of the University, Fontanes, — • Tons ayei
tort; C*est un brouillon un boutefeu, un esprit moqueur et faux:
il a sape par le ridicule les fondemons de toute autorite divine et
humaine, il a perverti le sieclo.' And of Rousseau we are told hj
M. de Girardin, who, when a boj, as previously stated, had re-
ceived a few lessons in botany from him at Ermenonville, in Jane,
1778, that on visiting this final retreat of Jean Jacques with Bona- .
parte, whilst First Consul, the latter said, ' il aurait mieux vaia
pour le repos de la France que cet homme (Rousseau) n*eut jamais
existe. Et pourquoi Citoyen Consul?* asked Girardin, * G*est qu'il
a prepare la revolution Francaise. * * Je croyais Citoyen Consul,'
replied Girardin, ' que ce n'ctait pas ^ vous h, vous plaindre de la
revolution.* * Eh bion,' rejoined Bonaparte, 'I'avenir apprendra all
n'e^t pas mieux valu pour le repos de la terre que ni Roasseau ni
moi n'cussions jamais exi5t6.* Ho had, when this singular con-
versation occurred, just returned from Egypt and become the Ruler
of France. Girardin was a man of veracity, otherwise his recital
would hardly be credited. On their return to Malmaison, then
Bonaparte's domestic residence, they found his wife seated at the
dinner table waiting for their arrival, when the great warrior's
countenance at once displayed the highest dissatisfaction at Jose-
phine's presuming to take her seat before himself. Tet he was a
fond and indulgent husband, though perfectly cognizant of her
ante-nuptial irregularities ; but like a sovereign, he would not per-
mit any one to precede him, not oven a lady — as kings do not per«
mit their queens to take precedence of them." — Vol. i. p. 158.

The following remarks, taken from our author's notice of
Mr. Hallam's Literary History of the 16th century, and
addressed to the Gentleman's Magazine^ contains matter
of some national interest.

" At page 63, of the second volume, Mr. Hallam observes, that it
is questionable whether any printing press existed in Ireland before
IGOO, but wo have the distinct assertion of Sir James Ware, (Annals,
p. 124, ed., 1705, repeated in 1746,) that the English Liturgy was
printed in Dublin, by Humphry Powell, in 1551, at the command
of the Lord Lieutenant Sentleger (sic), and the Council. Powell, as
may be seen in Dr. Dibdin's Typographical Antiquities, (voL if

1851.] Essays of an Octogenarian. — Jamt>s Roche. 187

311,) had exercised his profession in 1548 and 1549, at Holborn-
Conduit, in London, whence he removed to Dublin ; and, in the
history of this latter capital by Whitelaw and Walsh, (vol. i. p.
195,) it is stated more particularly, * that on Easter Sunday of the
year 1550, the Liturgy in the English tongue was first read in
Christ Church, in pursuance of an order from the king (Edward VI.)
for that purpose ; and the following year was printed by Humphry
Powell, who had a license for so doing, to the exclusion of all others.'
' It is probable,' those compilers add, that* this is the first book
printed in Ireland.' In a subjoined note, it is moreover affirmed,
that the Bible had also appeared the same year ; for which, refer-
ence is pointed to Ware's Annals ; but that antiquary is silent as
to the Bible, though positive in regard to the liturgy ; and the
Dublin annalists have, therefore, transgressed their quoted autho-
rity. Indeed, it is perfectly certain, that no Bible of so early a
date issued from the Irish press ; for I do not recollect any trace of
it in our bibliographical records. It exists not, as I have ascer-
tained by enquiry, in the royal collection of Wirtenburg, nor the
library of the Duke of Sussex ; and the former, it is well known, is
the largest repository of the sacred code ever formed. See Bibli-
otheca, Wurtenburgensium Ducis (Grandfather of the reigning
monarch) Olim Lorkiana, auctore F. G. Aldero, Hamb. 1787, 4 to,
and Allgemeine*s Bibliographisches Lexicon, Leipsic, 1821-1830 ; as
also Dr. Diblin's Tour, iii. 21. Were it to exist, a copy would doubt-
less be in the Dublin University Library, as that of the liturgy is,
but it does not contain such a volume, though Mr. Robert Shaw,
representative of the LTniversity, has asserted that it did, but he,
like others, mistook the liturgy, which of course he could not have
seen, and only accepted the fact on report for it. This occurred in
parliament, where there was no one competent to prove his error.
In 1566, the London printer, John Day, sold in Dublin, according
to his statement, seven thousand copies of his octavo edition of the
English Bible, which he was the first to publish in that minor form,
in 1549 ; and these, we may presume, were the earliest copies that
circulated in Ireland, Dr. Heale, Archbishop of York, had pre-
sented to the two Deans and Chapters of Christ Church, a large
folio Bible each, in 1559. (Ware's Antiquities, ibid.)

**But as for the alleged Bible in 1551, if we could discover any
vestige of it to support the statement of the Dublin annalists, its
extinction might naturally enough be imputed to the intolerant
spirit of the succeeding reign ; for similarly, scarce does a complete
copy appear to survive of the first English Bible printed, it is sup-
posed, at Zurich, in 1535, so successful had been Henry VIII. in
suppressing it ; and Mary, on the death of Edward, may be pre-
sumed not more indulgent in regard of the first Irish edition.
Copies, however, of other editions, printed in London previous to
her reign, are not so rare as to indicate any strenuous efforts on her
part for their destruction ; and^ however sanguinary her rule was

k.

188 Essays of an Octogenarian. — James Roche. [Sepf.

in England, it is an incontestable fact, that the perseoation in blood
did not extend to Ireland. On the contrary. Sir James Ware,
whose assertion is unquestioned, states, anno 1554, page^l35, 'that
sereral of the protestants of England fled oyer to Ireland, bj reason
of Queen l^Iarj having begun to prosecute (sic.) them for their
religion, viz. John Heryej, Abel Ellis, John Edmonds, and Ueaij
Hugh, who bringing over their goods and chattels, lived in Dublin,
and became citizens of this city.' " Vol. i. p. 171.

In noticing, however, the general, and indeed the often
surprising accuracy of our author, we must take the
liberty of drawing attention to some of the errors into
which he has been drawn, by too implicit a reliance on
what he deemed most trustworthy authorities. Of this
kind is the ^ following account of the divorce of Napoleon
and Josephine. The narrative of the facts is substantially
correct ; hut the supposition that the renewal of the mar-
riage of Napoleon and Josephine by Cardinal Fesch> tcni^r
the authority of Pius VII*,^ could have been invalidated
by the absenco of their parish priest, is entirely without
foundation.

'' Of Napoloon*s separation (for the Roman Church acknowledges
no divorce) from Josephine, there aro some circumstances connected
with the subject not familiar, I believe, to the general reader.
The civil marriage took place on the 9th of March, 1796, a few days
before he entered on the first field of his glory, the campaign of
that year in Italy. Tiiat ceremony of course could not operate 18
a religious bar to the subsequent and more sacred nnion with Marie
Louise. It however has transpired that though primarily neglected,
the religious solemuity had at a later period been performed. In
fact, it has been ascertained, though long kept in. mysterious
secrecy, that on the eve of the day appointed for the coronation,
that is, on the first of Docember, 1804, Josephine, urged by aome
residuous scruple, having communicated to the Pope that the
religious rites, or nuptial benediction, had not consecrated her
union with Bonaparte, the Pontiff at once intimated to the emperor
his fixed determination not to sanction, by the part he- had beea
called upon to act in the contemplated ceremony of the following
day, what he now learned was an unhallowed cohabitation. Napo-
leon, greatly irritated at Josephine's disclosure, yet well aware of
the Pope's invincible adherence to a conscientious principle^ yielded
to the requirement, rather than forego what he had been at snoh
pains to obtain, ' his coronation by the sovereign Pontiff.' The
marriage was then accordingly solemnized by Cardinal Fe8ch» in
the presence of Talleyran<l and Bei*thier, the sole assistants, who were
bonnd to the strictest secrecy. It became however necessary to*

1851.] Essays of an Octogenarian. — James Roche. 189

satisfy the conscience of the emperor Francis on this pointy before
he could, in accordance^ with his creed, consent to the proposed
marriage of Napoleon, with 'la fille des Cesars.' But the difficulty
was of prompt adjustment, on discovering that the Cardinal who
had officiated, had omitted to obtain the presence or sanction of the
special parish priest, as indispensably enjoined bj the Council of
Trent, and all ecclesiastical hindrance to Napoleon*s legitimate
union with his second Empress remoyed. On this ground, the
officiating or ecclesiastical authority of Paris, to whose jurisdiction
the case was submitted, pronounced the marriage null." — Vol. ii.
p. 174.

In the first place, we must observe, with respect to the
foregoing account, that when his Holiness, being made aware
of the previous neglect, gave directions to have the
defect supplied, his authority as supreme pastor was
quite enough to legitimate the union, without any recourse
to the pastor of the immediate locality in which the parties
lived, or the ceremony was performed : and we may rest
assured, that when,asis mentioned here, he was made aware
that no marriage was previously performed, he took every
step necessary for its being done in a proper manner.
When the marriage with Maria Louisa was contemplated,
a formal petition was presented to the ecclesiastical tri-
bunal of the diocese of Paris, to have the marriage with
Josephine declared null and void. The petition alleged
two reasons, one that it was clandestine, and the other that
Napoleon only pretended to give his consent to the union.
Either of these would, if existing: at the time of marriage,
be an impediment to its validity. The diocesan court
pronounced sentence on the 9th of January, 1810, and this
sentence was confirmed by the metropolitan tribunal
shortl^^ after. Now in this decision the subject of clandes-
tinity is altogether passed over. Not a word is said about
it, which shews that there was no ground for the allegation ;
and the sentence of separation, and the declaration of the
invalidity of the marriage, are grounded entirely on the
want of the necessary consent in one of the contracting
parties.

It is unnecessary for us to remark on the improbability
of this impediment, particularly when alleged after so long
a lapse of time, and for the attainment of such an object.
The competency or the propriety of such a tribunal to
decide on the question at issue is yet more questionable.
The universal practice of the Christian world has consti-

190 Essays of an Octogenarian. — James Roche. [Sept.

tuted the supreme PontiflF the sole jud^e of such (questions,
where the honour of crowned heads^ and the interest of
nations are at issue. The united weight of these several
reasons for questioning the decision, led thirteen cardinals
to refuse to sanction the second marriage, or even to be
present at the ceremony. The account of the protest may
be seen in Cardinal Facca's memoirs, and the particulars
of the proceedings in the marriage process, in the Slst
volume of the " Ami de la Religion,*' from the pen of
Rudemare, who was the promoter of the diocesan Court
of Paris at the time the circumstances occurred.^

The following quotations which we shall give, must
prove interesting from the nature of the subject.

"At page, 116, O'Connell states that he was the onlj boy not
beaten at Harrington's Scliool. 'lowed this,' he adds, 'to mj
attention.' The fact admits of. no contradiction ; but I have been
assured that, if not beaten bj the master, he was by the scholan,
for his unsociability, apparent shyness, and preference of study,
or secluded reflection, to plaj. Nor jet was he, I have been equallj
assured bj his schoolfellows, particularly distinguished amongst
them for superior capacity, at that early period, though shortly
after, during his foreign tuition, he gave unerring promise of faturo
eminence ; as he also became one of the most joyous, pleasant
companions in social intercourse, when at the bar, mess, or in
Society." — Vol. ii. page 99.

•• With the Duke of Wellington, O'Connell (p. 196) found two
faults. — ' One,' he says, * is that I never yet heard of his promoting
any person in the army from mere merit, unless backed by some
interest ; — the second fault is, that the Duke has declared that the
only misfortune of his life is his being an Irishman.' And merited,
indeed, would be the reproach, were this statement strictly true ;
but in refutation of the first, I could adduce more than one con-
tradictory proof, were the circumstances susceptible of easy abridg-
ment ; while in reply to the second, I can affirm, that at a St.
Patrick's charity dinner in London, where he presided, I heard the
Duke most distinctly express the pride he felt in being an Irishman,
and glory in the achievements of his countrymen under his com-
mand. It is very possible that his declared sentiments were not of
uniform tenor, or controlled in utterance on all occasions, no more
than O'Conneirs, when he sunk the great warrior into a * stunted
sergeant,' or reviled the Saxons in language which reflection could
surely not sanction. Fault, indeed, may be found, and no excuse
can be pleaded for the absence of Wellington's name from the list
of subscriptions for his starving countrymen, during the fearful
visitation of the past years. It is a stain, and a deep one, on his

1851.] ' Essays of an Octoffefiarian, — James Roche. l9l

memorj, otherwise destined to shine so resplendentlj in the annals
of the empire.'

'* O'Gonnell told me, in confirmation of what is reported in page
204, that when he first addressed a public meeting, he scarcel/
knew what he said, so timid was he then. His earliest exhibition
as an orator at Cork, was on the 2nd of September, 1811, at the
first great Catholic meeting held there, and of which I was Chair-
man. He made a splendid speech of two hours* duration, which he
passed the night in preparing for the press, and which I saw the
next morning, fairlj written in his bold flowing hand, exactly as he
had pronounced it, though he certainly could not have gotten it
entirely by heart, for he adverted in his course to various incidental
matters of the discussion. On reminding him in later years of the
circumstance, he observed that he had long been saved the trouble
of transcribing his own speeches.'

" Many years since, 0*Connell related to me his meeting with
the two brothers, Sheares, on his return home from St. Omar, and
Douai, in January, 1793, and his horror at the language of these
unhappy men, in reference to the execution which they had ex-
ultingly witnessed of the ill-fated Louis XVI. Just then emerged
from the doctrine and discipline of a college deeply abhorrent of
the proceedings of the period, of which the establishments were the
victims, he participated in the impression and sentiments, and
indeed ever continued unaltered in these early views, and cordial
preference of Constitutional monarchy to any other form of govern-
ment. Mr. John 0*Connell, in the biography of his illustrious
father, by some oversight, or lapse of the pen or memory, post-dates
the royal execution by eleven months, placing it in December,
instead of January (the 2lst), 1793. The day will ever be present
to my deeply impressed recollection.

** Before the outbreak of the insurrection in 1798, during the
assizes of Limerick, Lord Clare desired to have an interview with
the two Sheares, to which my father, in the hope of a pacific result,
invited them at his house ; but it ended, unfortunately, in more
intense and exasperated irritation, as was discernible in the young
men's flushed features and defiant bearing, as they parted. Yet
the Chancellor's object was certainly benevolent and conciliatory :
but they were intractable. The interview was close and private ;
still I marked their aspect on leaving the house, inflamed and indig-
nant in every lineament. Possibly overtures repulsive to their feel-
ings may have thus excited them. Happening the following year
to occupy, in Dublin, apartments where the younger Sheares, John,
had resided, I discovered in a recess, a parcel of his correspondence,
which, on finding it to be from a female, I instantly burned."*

** Often and complacently has O'Connell repeated, that the in-
born ambition, the first conscious aspiration of his soul, which his
memory could retrace, was, ' that his name should be written upon
the pages of Irish History.' And most fully, we may say, without

]92 Essays of an Octogoiarian, — James Roche. [Sept.

any presumptuous claim of prescience, is that desire destined to be
accomplish dd ; for to none of her goneration will the annaU of his
country owe, or more justly devote, alarge^ a grateful, and brilliant
page. His mortal career is now closed, inauspiciously, indeed, and
unseasonably, as succeeding events have shown, whilst, in whatever
light his political course, which alone can be open to oontroversy,
may be viewed, there can exist no variance of opinion, as to the
surpassing energies of his mind, which, in their direction^ if not
the approval, must command the admiration of all.

" As hostilities amidst scenes of national discord can, we know,
be as fiercely pursued, and often with no less personal risk, ai
at the point of the sword, surely those who at home, in defianoe
of all danger, have perseveringly and intrepidly combated the
enemies of Ireland, are entitled to similar commemoration. And
if so, what name can supersede, in due expression of his country's
obligations, that of O^Connell, who devoted his long and glorions
life to that sacred cause ? For although the struggle, which,
during an uninterrupted series of forty years, he maintained
against the combined selfishness, deep-rooted prejudices, and
fanatic intolerance of the English people, aggravated in its
rancour by the still more embittered Orange faction at home, hid
for its object, in the assertion of justice, to prevent, not to excite
tlie effusion of blood, yet the contest of adverse interests and
passions which he had to encounter, placed him quite in as hostile
a position, and demanded equal boldness of spirit, and capacity of
mind, as if engaged in mortal strife at the cannon's month. His
final triumph, accordingly, over the multiplied obstacles he had to
surmount, revealed in him, with uiierring demonstration, all the
faculties of a great commander. To have held in control a well-
trained army, is far easier, and calls into exertion less energies of
our being, than to maintain, as he did, submissive to his every be-
hest, a nation of warm temperament, or at least, several millions of
an uneducated, undisciplined population, to whose gratitude for
their religious enfranchisement, and confidence in his uprightness
of purpose, he owed this boundless sway, and endured possessioDi
beyond all example, of the popular favour — ^that delusive phantom,
which, while sunk in seeming subjection, cau abruptly seize and
fearfully wield the tyrant's sceptre, suddenly burst what appeared
indissoluble in adamantine hold, and capriciously crush or enchm
the idol of its own creation. History, I repeat, discloses not to oar
view a tenure comparable, in duration or intensity, of that prover-
bial symbol of inconstancy, which far exceeded wiiat we read of
Pericles, of Chatham, or any other competitor for fame in the
power of 'ruling the fierce democracy.' In a word, 0*ConneU'a
command of the human will, 'that spell upon the mind of man,'
as characterized by Byron, in application to Napoleon, sufficiently
proves liis genius, evinces the master-spirit, and proclaims the
extraordinary man. Even the unmeasured abuse which, in th9

1851.] Essays of an Octogenarian, — James Roche. 193

opposition of political feeling assailed him, it belonged not to cha-
racters of common mould to excite, but which, in its source
and consequences, will reflect to the future historian, the most
vivid image of the age, and ensure to its object the commensurato
but more dispassionate notice of posteritj.*

** The portrait of the elder Cato, as we find it in Livj (lib.
zixix.. Cap. 40), appears so apposite in many features to O'Connell,
that, though referred to by me elsewhere, I am induced here to
reproduce it. * Si jus consuleres, peritissimus ; si causa oranda
esset eloquentissimus. Orationes et pro se multae, et pro aliis, et
in alios ; nam non solum accusando, sed etiam causam dicendo
fatigarit inimicos. Simultates nimisplures et exercuerunt eura, et
ipse exercuit eas ; nee facile dixeris utrum magis presserit eum
nobilitas, an ille agitaverit nobilitatem. Lingua) proculdubio
acerbse, et immodice liberse fuit.*** — Vol. ii. p. 120.

We shall give no more extracts. Those we have already
giveu afford a fair specimen of our author's style and turn
of thought, and also of his habits of study. In our opinion,
the papers that have been contributed to our own pages
are by far the most studied, the most regular, and the
most finished productions of his pen. We would instance
particularly those on Voltaire, in reply to Lord Brougham's
work on that subject, on D'Aubigne's History of the
Reformation, and on the Bible and the Reformation. AH
of which are works of great ability and research, and evince
a complete mastery of the several subjects. From the
quotations we have already given, the reader will perceive
that the author's habits of reading are rather of a discur-
sive than of a profound character, and that he has earned
the reputation rather of knowing a great deal more than
ordinary persons on a vast variety of subjects, than of a
deep and thorough knowledge of any particular depart-
ment ; and, also, that without any pretensions to beauty or
superior excellence, his style of writing is always clear,
methodical, correct, and strikingly expressive. The lan-
guage is indeed occasionally quaint and old-fashioned.
We encounter now and then a long word, or a latinized
form of sentence, that we will in vain seek to find in the
recent editions of Blair's Lectures, or Murray's Grammar,
or Walker's Dictionary, but which is eminently suggestive
of ponderous folios, and vellum quartos, and rare works of
the medioBval times, extended in long rows, in close prox-
imity to the writer's elbow. It needs no great effort of

VOL. XXXI.— No. LXI, 13

a.

194 Essays of an Octogenarian. — James Roche, [Sept

intellectual sagacity to discover that the author is an old
man, so full and flowing is the stream of his literary gossipi
and so charming is the garrulity with which he discourses,
apparently without eflfort, and certainly without fatij^e, of
times long since past by, and of men wno have been fanioas
in story, and of books which have been written on curious
themes, or published with strange titles ; or when he tells
how a clever bon mot, that has got one man a name,
belonged in reality to another, or a book that has all the
charm of novelty, is in truth but an old work, published
many a long year ago, and with which he was familiar in
his youth, or shows how a volume ascribed to such a date,
and said to have been printed in such a city, was indeed
long antecedent, and first saw the light in a place five hun-
dred miles away. We get so much and such instructive
information, and it is imparted in a manner so enffa^ng
and so interesting, that we would be content to sit from
morning dawn till night, silent and attentive listeners.
From what we have now said of the nature of his style and
the discursiveness of his matter, it may be easily inferred
that many of the productions in the volume before us are
of an epistolary character. In our opinion that slgrle is best
suited to his peculiar talents, though it is one in which
excellence has been rarely attained amongst us. Hence
we find in these pages a great number of letters to several
periodicals. Though intended for publication, they have
all the charm and freedom of a private correspondence. It
would be difficult to find a correspondence more instructive
and interesting, and on more out-of-the-way matter, than
in the letters addressed by him to the Gentleman's Mi^ga-
zine. We may instance particularly the letters on the
French Ambassadors at the court of England. In the
matter of dates, and quotations from the classic authors,
and the value of the several editions of the more celebrated
authors, and almost in every particular regarding the liter-
ature of France during the last century, we know no one
on whose authority we should with more confidence rely,
than on our venerable and respected octogenarian.

Of the literary merit of these volumes we shall say no
more ; but of the author a few words remain to be said
before we conclude this notice. For some years past Mr.
Koche has occupied a most distinguished position among
his fellow citizens. Independently of his age and experi-
ence, the devotion which he has always manifested to the

1851.] Essays of an Octogenarian. — James Roche. 195

cause of literature, and the zeal he has shown in every
well-directed eflFort to promote the education of his country,
has secured for him the respect and esteem of all to whom
the intellectual state of the people is an object of solicitude.
He has taken a leading part in every educational move-
ment in the south of Ireland for some years past. When
the British Association held its meeting in Cork, he was
unanimously appointed president of the local committee,
to make the necessary preparations for the reception of
that body. He has been for many years president of the
Royal Cork Institution for the promotion of science, and
also of the committee for the management of the public
library ; and only those who are in the habit of taking part
in the proceedings of those bodies, can possibly know
or appreciate the regularity, the diligence, the efficiency of
his valuable co-operation. We may judge the estimate in
which his long and eminent services are held from the fact,
that this very year a public subscription has been entered
into, to have his portrait taken, by an artist of high repute,
for preservation in one of the public institutions.

Even at his advanced period of life, Mr. Roche still con-
tinues to devote himself, with the most unremitting assi-
duity, to his favourite pursuits. There is scarcely a new
publication that appears that is not perused by hinfi. With
every one of the literary periodicals he is familiar, and
there is not an historical book of any cotisequence that is
not made the subject of his criticism. After the profes-
sional labours of the day, he regularly makes the round of
the public libraries of the city, and may be seen wending
his way homeward, like the bee returning to the hive, well
laden with literary treasures. Nor is the volume he
peruses the worse for having passed through his hands, for
on t^e margin will be often found the result of his labours,
in some valuable connection of the text, or, perhaps, in
some more valuable suggestion.

We have but little more to add, and that little is in
praise of the very excellent style in which those volumes
have been printed. They are not inferior to the very best
specimens of typography that have issued from the presses
of the metropolis, and reflect great credit on all the parties
that have been engaged in their production. We rejoice
that it has been so ; for we rejoice that the literary labours
of an old friend should be worthily and creditably pre-
served ; we are glad that the intellect of one that has

19(5 Tlie Catholic Florist. [Sept

grown old in the service of literature should be fitly
honoured ; that the mind so stored and gifted should be
reflected back upon us as it deserves to be, long after the
bodily frame in which it dwelt shall have passed away. It
is thus it ought to be ; yet we trust that the labours are
not yet over, and, though the hope may seem presumptuous,
that the series will not be finally concluded until another
volume, for which we know there is abundant matter, be
added, and thus complete the Essays of au Octogenarian.

AiiT. VIII. — The Catholic Flcyi^st, AGuidetothe Cullivationqf Fhwen
for the Altar : with a list of suck as are appivpriate to we severed
llohj Daya and Seasons of the Ecclesiastical Year ; the whole tSiii-
(rated hy Historical Notices and Fragments of EcclesianticeX Poeinf,
Witli a Preface by the Rev. Frederick Oakeley, M.A, Oxon.
Richardson aud Sou : London, Dublin, and Perbj.

THE title page of this beautiful book sufficiently explains
its end and object. It offers itself to Catholics as " a
guide to the cultivation of Flowers for the Altar ;*' and it is
enriched with historical notices, often of tio commoa
interest, as well as with fragments of ecclesiastical poetiy,
illustrative of the several days and seasons of the GhriBtian
year, and of the peculiar flowers appropriate to each.
Altogether, it furnishes a calendar for the year, enumerate
ing the saints to whom ever^^ day is specially consecrated,
aud adding also in brackets the names of other saints
appointed to be remembered on that particular day. But
this is not all ; it is really and practically a manual fsr
the gardener who chooses to give a religious and Catholic
direction to^ his favourite pursuit. It tells him what
flowers are in bloom during each month, and gives him
directions for the purpose of ensuring their blossoming,
as nearly as possible, at the exact time when they are
required for the Altar. It also adds a vast amount of
useful and interesting information, as to the ideas which

1851.] The Catholic Florist. 197

are popularly and traditionally connected in England
with many of our flowers ; and it opens a wide field for
further enquiry to such as are fond of antiquarian lore.
Interspersed with these observations, is a judicious
selection of ecclesiastical poetry, culled from a wide range
of writers, which our readers will find suggestive of many
practical and devotional reflections.

After all, however, we feel that we have by no means
done justice to the book itself, until we have drawn out,
to some extent at least, the real devotional character
which it is intended to wear. As to those who unhappily
are reared external to the one true fold, and are con-
sequently brought up in a cold and imperfect faith, we
cannot expect to nnd in them any power or faculty
capable of appreciating the idea which, if we may, so
speak, underlies the entire work. They cannot com-
prehend how matters so simple and so trivial as the flowers
of the field or of the garden, can be turned to a
devotional use, and made to minister to the honour and
glory of Almighty God. But it is otherwise with the
Catholic. He has been taught from his earliest infancy to
believe that nothing is small or trivial which can be made
to bear upon redeemed souls, or brought in any way into
connection with the service of God. Accordingly, what
seems so strange in the eyes of others, appears to him in
the light of something natural and obvious : and so he
loves to indulge the spontaneous feelings of his soul within,
and as he has been ever wont to associate the ideas of joy
and gladness with the flowers of the field or of the
bright parterre, he naturally oflfers them as presents upon
the sacred Altar, where He, whom he adores, really and
truly dwells. Just as the untaught heathen, led by the
voice of nature, rejoiced to crown with flowers the Altar
which he reared to his false deities ; so with an equally
natural impulse the Catholic Christian hastens to deck the
Altar of his true God and Saviour with the fairest flowers
which the field or the garden can produce. And what
fairer present can he bring ? Is there one thing to be
found that bears less witness than all others to the baneful
effects of the fall of our first parent? it is the flower-
garden. Does any one thing tend more than every other
to carry back our minds to the joys of Eden ? Our answer
is the same. Is there one thing with which the universal
consent of mankind has more intimately woven the feelings

l98 The Catholic Florist. [Sept

of joy and gladness? Again, it is the flower-garden.
Beautiful then, and innocent, and joyous, we deeni them,
humble as they are, fit offerings for the Altar of Him who
made them first, and gave to them their beauty of form
and colour.

With these few introductory remarks, we go on to^ state
the principle on which Mr. Oakeley has proceeded in his
book. It is this, to use his own words :

" That in the words of Inspiration, (1 Tim. iv. 4) 'every creatare
of God is good/ capable of ministering to the glory of the Giver,
and of assisting in the accomplishment of His work in the 10111 of

man Acting on this great truth," continues Mr. Oakeley, "the

Holy Church has provided in the august ritual of religion, for the
consecration to God of whatever is most beautiful and most highly
prized among the works of His hands, or the productions of the
genius and skill which are the fruits of His power. The precious
metals which lie buried in earth are wrought into the vessels which
enshrine or sustain the Adorable Presence on the Altar ; the
labours of the delicate hand, or the products of ingenious machinery,
are turned to the account of religion in the draperies of the sanoto-
ary, or the vestments of the Priest : the busy bee and the languid
silk-worm are ministers in the same holy cause ; for the one yields
the materials for the loom, and the other has its praise in the very
offices of Holy Church, as the unconscious contributor of the
substance of Her Paschal Light. And shall it be thought," he
asks, " that flowers, the fairest and most unblemished among the
remnants of Paradise, are to have no place in this catalogue of
tributary offerings ? Rather we place them on the Altar of our
Lord, or weave them into chaplets for His dear Mother, without
reserve or misgiving, as feeling that of all the productions of nature
they have been the least diverted by man from their original and
proper destination. They seem to carry their consecration in
themselves ; instinct with no mischief, and needing no exorcism."
(Preface, pp. ii — iv.)

■

Now, we feel that these words of the Editor may be left
to speak for themselves : they are so very plain and simple
that they need no comment : the very position they assert,
is a sort of axiomatic truth. The natural instinct which
leads a little child to cull some choice flower as the best
present it can lay upon a mother's lap, which teaches the
bride to adorn herself with flowers in token of her joy, and
the wealthy host to decorate his courtly saloon with no
choicer ornaments, is confirmed by the practice of eveiy
age and country, and needs not to be defended. And if

1851.] The Catliolic Florist. 199

we really have a heartfelt sense of our blessed Saviour's
presence upon the Altars of His Church, how can we fail
to show it forth in the same simple and natural nianner ?
especially when we remember, as Mr. Oakeley reminds us,
that these are gifts which are alike available to rich and
poor, and so form a ground, as it were, *' on which rich
and poor may meet together in the service of the Church,
the mother of both alike.*'

Mr. Oakeley next quotes largely from the Canticle to
show how ancient and how scriptural is the religious
*' language of flowers.'* He then passes on to the prac-
tice of the early Christians, and adduces the fresco paint-
ings in the catacombs of Rome, in testimony of the practice
of connecting the garden and the field with lessons of
religion. This, perhaps, is not new to most of our readers;
but much that follows will be found novel, as well as
interesting, to a devout mind. In the earlier and middle
ages of the Church, a close connection was felt to subsist
between religion and horticulture. '' What marvel, if. . .....

these holy saints and servants of God found links with
Heaven in the herbs of the field, or the flowers of the
ffarden, and delighted to give them names significant of
Jesus' love and Mary's graces ?" Hence it was, that ^' at
a time when everything^ wore a devotional aspect, and
suggested an unearthly idea," each flower was coupled
with the name of some saint, or made to refer to some part
of the life of our blessed Lord, and of His holy Mother.
Thus the " snowdrop " of our own day, in the better "ages
of faith " was known as ^^the Fair Maid of February,'*
in honour of the Immaculate. Thus, too, the modern
" holy hock " was once " the Holy Oak :" the " iris," once
the ''Fleur de S. Louis:" "hypericum" was known as
" S. John's wort ;" the " Viola Tricolor " as the '' Herb
Trinity;" the ^' Sweet William" as the "Herb S.
William." And to show how the Catholic mind loved to
associate the flowers of its garden with its love of Her who
is " the lily of Eden," we need only mention the names of
"our Ladye's Seal," " our Ladye's Laces," "ourLadye's
Mantle," " our Ladye's Slipper," and that flower which
almost alone in this cold and unbelieving age retains its
ancient name, the "Marygold." Surely the very fact
that such names once existed and were common " in ore
omnium," coupled with the fact that most of them are now,
alas ! forgotten^ or have been exchanged for some unmean-

200 llie Catholic Florist. [Sept

ing heathen term, fully waiTants Mr. Oakeley in the follow-
ing assertion. " In every instance the name has been
changed with a sacrifice of the religious meaning: and
whether this has arisen in the progress of science, as in
some cases, or, as in others, through a verbal corruption,
the decay of Christian principle is alike appai'ent. Where
Catholicism prevails, men instinctively turn to Ood and
the blessed saints for the invention of names for the
things of Creation: under Protestant influences they
as naturally take up with heathen traditions^ or the
notions of those around them.y We may add our own
belief, thatalthough the *' Passion '^ flower still retains its
ancient Catholic name, there is scarcely a Protestant to be
found through the length and breadth of England, who
ever thinks of associating it in his mind with the Passion
of our blessed lledeemer, though its symbolical features
are so very obvious.

We feel bound to add our firm conviction, that the hopes
which the Editor expresses as to the usefulness of his little
book will not be disappointed. We heaitily agree too
with him when he says, that "it will enable the Florist,
whether in higher or in humbler life, to cultivate the
garden with a Catholic object, as well as to view its pro-
ductions with a Catholic eye.^ And we prophecy that
wherever our Catholic friends will be at the pains to mark
out the directions which are here put into their hands,
they will find the Altar of their Church or Chapel distin-
guished by a far greater appropriateness of ornament than
they could secure by any amount of labour undertaken
without such a guide. We believe that even this little
book will be foinid to have an effect on the taste of devout
Catholics, who love to minister in these lesser things upon
their Lord, and who therefore spend their time and labour
in adorning His Altars. Many of our fair sisters especially,
whether living in the world, or in religion, find a refined
and holy pleasure in this task of love: and they will be
ready to welcome the friendly guidance of a book like
that with which Mr. Oakeley has supplied them.

The book itself is, altogether, got up in a style well
suited to the subject of which it treats. It is tastily^ set off
by its elegant blue binding : of the frontispiece and vignette
upon the title page, it is enough to say that they are the
design of Mr. Henry Doyle, in order to recommend them
to the Catholic reader.

1851.] The Guardian and " a Theory on Lying.'' 201

The book, however, we must repeat, is, after all, of a
practical character ^ and really enters into the subject of
practical horticulture, giving rules and observations based
on experience, as to the best method of rearing the several
flowers which it mentions. Throughout the calendar of
months and days, our readers will find interspersed, (as we
said above,) a very choice collection of ecclesiastical poetry ;
many^ of them consisting of hymns taken from the
Breviary, and all, in some way or other, closely connected
with the saint of the day, or with his appropriate flower.
Among the authors quoted, we find, with a host of others,
the names of Wordsworth, Cowper, Milton and Dante,
Shakspere, Chaucer, and Tasso ; and among living
poets, Keble and Williams, Faber, Longfellow, Wacker-
barth, and Aubrey de Vere, besides a large number
of translations from the " Lyra Catholica ** of Mr.
Caswall, and several original pieces of great beauty
which originally appeared in *^ the Catholic Instructor.''
Several of the extracts from quaint old prose writers,
with their homely and proverbial style, strike us as exceed-
ingly happy in their ideas. The note on Holy Cross
day, bearing upon the ancient rood-screens of our
parish Churches, is very well suited to its place. Sixty
pages of practical observations on the .cultivation of par-
ticular flowers, together with a useful and carefully
compiled Index, bring the volume to a close.

Art. IX.— «'2i^tf €hMrdian,'\iov August 20, and September 3, 1851.

THOSE of our readers who are in the habit of seeing
the " Guardian '* newspaper, must have been struck
by the great increase of bitterness in its later tone against
us Catholics. Whether the recent conversions have in
various ways been the cause of this, (as for example, by
removing the influence of those who were charitably
disposed towards us, and again from the very circumstance

202 The Guardian and *'a Theory on Lying.** [Sepi

of their conversion exasperatinpf those who were unprepar-
ed to follow,) it is of no great moment to enquire ; more im-
portant it is to note^ that this increased hatred ^ of tlB
Catholic Church has been contemporaneous with an
increased indifference to matters of doctrine. ^ We cannot
indeed imagine, from the general tone of writing in the
'' Guardian'^ from the first, that its principal contributors
have ever had any firm or intelligent hold of doctrinal
principle. Still only two years ago, for instance when the
Gorham controversy first broke out, we think it would have
been difficult for anv one to fancy the " Guardian" gravely
maintaining, that the indiscriminate admission within a
Church's pale of omnigenous heresy, is a course no whit
more vitally inconsistent with its duties and privUeg^es, than
is the suspension of ecclesiastical censure against immoral
Christians ; and yet this has been the thesis for a long
series of articles^ during the end of the last and the begin-
ning of the present year. Still more amusing (if that be
not too light a word,) is the impassiveness and sang froid
with which (in its number for September 10,) it throws
overboard all idea of the indispensable obligation of Episco-
pal Ordination, and remarks '^ that the Episcopal organiza-
tion of the Church is not so essential, but that there may
be, though not m completely, real Christian means of
grace and ministries without it." More observable even
than this, is the doctrinal sympathy with Luther and Cal-
vin evinced in the sanie article ; where the writer observes
with inimitable simplicity: " The times of the Keformatiou
were difficult. The faith of the people in the doctrines of
Rome was suddenly overthrown ; then what were they to
do? They left the Roman system, and the Bishops stay^
behind/' In other words, it is for the people, not the
Bishops, to judge of dogma; and the Bishops refusing to
admit the truths brought to light by Luther and Calvin,
the people^ were even bound to leave their communion.
Just so Arians, Nestorians, Eutychians, and the rest in
long succession, have, at their various periods, felt them-
selves absolutely bound in conscience to break commimion
with the Popes of their day. As the "Guardian**
observes, '^ What were they to do ?" The Popes remained
blind to these new truths, and refused to hold communion
with those who professed them.

All these positions of the " Guardian,*' we say. are ve^
observable signs of the times; but most observable of ail is

185 1. J The Guardian and *' a Theory on Lying.*' 203

the provision so ingeniously made, for any single doctrinal
laxity which, at any future time, the necessities of their
party may require. For it is held as a fiiUy sufficient and
unanswerable excuse for their anti-episcopal decision, that
** the most able of our (Anglican) divines ' support it. We
should like to know what heresy in the whole world can
be discovered, which some great name among these ** old
divines *' will not be found to sanction.^ Father Newman,
in his lectures of last year, drew attention to Mr. Palmer's
admission, that Bramhall, Usher, Laud, and Field,
simplv the greatest names in the whole Anglican Caroline
Theology, express full doctrinal tolerance of the Nestorians
and Eutychians by name. And in another place he
points out, that Jeremy Taylor, whose heresy on the sub-
ject of Original Sin is also well known, calls the question at
issue between Avians and Catholics, " the product of idle
brains,*' and *' a dispute of words which concerned not the
worship of God, nor any chief commandment in Scrip-
ture ;'* while Falkland, who was the admired friend of
Hammond, thinks that '' before the Nicene Council the
generality of Christians had not been always taught the
contrary of Arius's doctrine, but some one way, others
the other, most neither/' (p. 317, 8.) To these observations,
now more than a year old, no answer up to this moment
has been so much as attempted by any Anglican writer ; so
that really those who are still inclined to put faith in the
** Guardian,** must be puzzled to know what article of all
which they now profess as most sacred, they may not, in due
time, be called on to give up. The necessity of Episcopal
Ordination is expressly surrendered in the article above
referred to ; and the essential importance of the doctrine,
that all baptized infants are regenerated in that Sacrament,
is by imphcation given up in the same article; viz., in the
sympathy expressed with Calvin*s Theology, who denied
that doctrine. But this is only an instalment of what they
may have hereafter to expect, judging from what has been
above said ; nor do we see how there is any one dogma, from
that of the Trinity and Incarnation downwards, on which
there is the slightest ground for confidence, that the " Guar-
dian** may not be prepared, on occasion, to deny its essential
importance. For it must be remembered, that this appeal
to the Anglican divines, as to a decisive authority, has
not been made in ignorance of their real sentiments ; but
after the above facts have been pointed out. There does not

204 'Hie Guardian and ^^ a Tlieory on Lying** [Sept.

seem indeed so much as a possibility of doubtinff that the
said charges are true^ when we consider that Uiey have
been made by one so intimately acquainted with these
writers' works as Father Newman, and that not one
syllable has been said on the other side to invalidate hiff
testimony; and we cannot but think it unspeakably dis-
creditable to the High Church party, that it can reteun a
scintilla of reverence for these so-called theologians, after
their total want of theological principles has been so
abundantly demonstrated.

What we have hitherto said, however, has been but indi-
rectly connected with our main obiect; as shewing, namely,
that the ** Guardian's'^ increased hostility to the Cathohc
Church has synchronised with its increased indifference
to dogmatic truth and principle. It is this hostility to the
Church, or rather one particular manifestation of it, on
which we intend addressmg a few remarks to our readers ;
«nd this, because (as the ^ Guardian" well knows,) a
charge of systematic unveracity is that which, of aU others^
tends most to prejudice the minds of Englishmen ajo^ainst
our doctrines and ourselves. The " Guardian has,
during the last few weeks, stereotyped, as one may say,
one particular phrase : *^ liome has a theory on the subject
of lying, and this is the result." It is our intention to
examine the two main instances, which it has adduced in
explanation and defence of this phrase.

It first occurs in an article (Aug. 20th) on " the Philo-
sophical Catechism" taught in the Neapolitan schools;
and we have no hesitation in saying, that, for the broad,
and even ridiculous contrast this article presents, between
the tenuity of its premisses, and the unmeasured violence
of its conclusions, it exceeds any essay whatever on a moral
subject, which we can call to mind. Let the reader judge.

We will begin by stating the conclusion which is, in truth,
fairly indicated by the fact, that Rome tacitly p^mits this
" Philosophical Catechism " to be taught in the Neapo-
litan schools. It is this, that what is commonly in Enff-
land called the High-Tory principle, is a principle fauj
tolerated by the Church. Catholics are in no way bound
to uphold this principle ; we who write extremely dislike
it; but Catholics are undoubtedly bound to maintain, and
we for our parts are fully prepared to maintain, that there
is nothing in this principle, (in any shape which it has
assumed publicly and for any length of time within the

1851,] The Guardian and '' a Theory on Lying:' 205

Church, and in its Neapolitan shape therefore inclusively,)
at all inconsistent with the essential truths of morality,
whether natural or revealed. Let the "Guardian'^ maintain
the contrary proposition ; and if Mr. Keble or some other
champion of his own communion do not anticipate us in
taking up the gauntlet, we shall be quite ready to under-
take the combat.

By the High-Tory principle is meant, as every one knows,
the principle that kings (and t hat, as is more commonly added ,
by hereditary right,) are entrusted immediately by God, and
BO as to be irresponsible to any human authority, with the
charge of governing the people ; that the relation of king
and subject is a relation in everyway analogous with that of
parent and child. Let us take the latter analogy with us.
And our argument will be made quite clear and convincing.
For let us suppose that a father had made the most
solemn promise conceivable to his children, that he would

{fovern them upon some specified method and rule ; and
et us suppose that afterwards he discovers, to his great
surprise, that this method and rule are most injurious to
their real welfare. To say that he is not bound to observe
his promise, is greatly to understate the matter ; he is
bound absolutely, and by the most solemn sanctions, to
break it. This is so very obvious, that there is no one so stu-
pid, or so prejudiced, as that he will hesitate to admit the
conclusion. The pai-ent may, or may not, have been hasty
ftnd indiscreet in originally making the promise, the result
of which he so little suspected ; but he is most certainly
and most peremptorily bound, without scruple or hesita-
tion, to break it, so soon as he shall discover that its
observance is very seriously injurious to those whom God
has immediately committed to his care. There is not a
Priest in the Catholic Church, we fully confess or rather
boast, who would give him any other response ; nor, we
suppose, would even the ** Guardian" dare to maintain
that such response savours of mendacious propensities, and
y results from a theory on lying.'' And yet such conduct
is absolutely identical, neither more nor less, with that
defended in " The Philosopliical Catechism."

Of our two premisses, then, one is now proved; viz., that
in the case of parent and child, such a proceeding as that
adopted by the King of Naples, would be absolutely impera-
tive; the other premiss, (viz., that on the High-Tory prin-
ciple the relation between king and subject is exactly

206 The Guardian and " a Theory an Lying.'' [Sept.

analagous with that of parent and chlldj being admitted
(we suppose) on all hands. We may here also add, that
this High-Tory principle has had undisturbed and tradi-
tional possession in the kinirdom of Naples, far more (we
believe) than in any other European country; and to aa
extent which will be best appreciated by those who are
conversant with St. Alphonsus's Life, and who have
observed again the doctrine in his '* Moral Theology/'
certainly divergent from the more common one,* on the gear
eral question of political obedience. It remains, therefore,
only to quote the passages cited in the " (Juardian,** and
beg our readers (who are probably not High-Tories,) to
imagine the relation of parent and child, where mention is
here made of king and subject. We keep the ** Gaar-
dian's'' italics and capitals^ that we may give our opponent
every advantage,

** S. If the people, in the very act of electing a sovereign, shall
impose upon him certaia conditions and certain reservatiooa, will
not these reservations, and these conditions, form the coustitation
and the fundamental law of the state ?

" M. They will, provided the sovereign shall have granted and
ratified them freely. Otherwise they will not ; because the people,
which is made for submission, and not for command, cannot impose
a law upon the Sovereignty, which derives its power, not from them,
but from God.

'* S. Suppose that a prince, in assuming the sovereignty of a
state, has accepted and ratified the constitution, or fundamental
law of that state, and that he has promised, or bwobn to observe it»
is he bound to keep that promise, and to maintain that consitution,
and that law ?

" M. He is bound to keep it, provided it does not overthrow the
foundations of sovereignty ; and provided it is not opposed to As
general interests of the state,

" S. Whose business is it to decide tchen the constitution imp09es tks
rights of sovereignly, and is adverse to the welfare of the people f

'* M. It is the business of the sovereign ; because in him resides the
paramount power, established by God in the state, with a view to
Its just order and felicity."

This is literally the tvhole quotation^ as we find it in the

* See for St. Thomas's and Suarez's doctrine on this head,
Balmez's work on Protestantism and Catholicity, Eng. Transl., ppw
416—424.

1851.] The Guardian and " a Theory on Lying^ 207

" Guardian*' : and it contains no other principles, as we
have pointed out, than those which every one would unhesi-
tatingly adopt in the instance of parent and child ; or in
any other instance where absolute and irresponsible autho-
rity is given by God to one person over another : which,
on the High Tory theory, is precisely the case of a king.
And yet this ^[ Guardian" has the astonishing boldness
to assert, that in the above passages the Catechism ^' phi-
losophizes away the duty of veracity," and "gives a theory
about Zytn^, viz., that it is righteous." Why all this
talk, in a merely intellectual point of view, is too shal-
low and silly to deceive even a well-instructed and
acute school-boy. The whole conclusions contained in
the Catechism, follow of necessity, according to the
moral principles advocated by the " Guardian" itself,
from the fundamental political dictum, that subjects are
placed by God directly and irresponsibly under their
king's governance. What then can be more transparently
clear, wan that any fault which the *' Guardian has to
find with these conclusions, must be referable, not to
the moral principles upheld on the subject of veracity,
(because these, as we have seen, are identical with the
''Guardian's" own,) but to this fundamental political
dictum ; which (true or false) at least belongs to a subject
absolutely and toto coelo distinct from that of veracity ?

If any thing could make the whole thing more extra-
vagant, it would be that these announcements are found
in the organ of a party which makes Charles the First its
hero, and a reverent observance of the 30th of January a prin-
cipal badge. For not only did Charles the First hold this
High Tory principle, (and through his ecclesiastical pre-
tensions indeed, in a way which no Catholic can defend,)
but pursued it into rather extreme consequences, in the
wajT of faithlessness to his promises. At least there are
various passages in his life, which it is difficidt to know
how any one can even profess to defend on any other
principle than that above laid down ; far as we are from
admitting that they are justly defensible even upon that.
Was Charles the I irst brought into contact with *'a theory
on the subject of lying," and were '^ these its results?"

Another example from an opposite quarter of the horizon
at once presents itself. The oath of allegiance to King
James the Second, was worded as absolutely and uncon-
ditionally as King Ferdinand's oath to his subjects.

203 The Guardian and " a Tlieory on L^ing.^ [Sept.

How large was tho proportion of Englishmen who fdt
the slightest scruple at unceremoniouslj breaking it,
when his government was not to their taste? Bull was
among the number of those who broke it, the only An-
glican writer, we suppose, from the Keformation down-
wards, who has any i)retence to be called a theologian ;
the majority of the *' bishops'* broke it ; and the great body
of clergy and gentry : and broke it too as a simple matter
of course, without a particle of scruple or misgiving.
Was this because *' effrontery and self-righteousness was
infused into false moral teaching,*' through "the system of
deciding moral questions by precise rules and subtle
argumentation ?" If not, how is it that we are to account
for the phenomenon ? Is it not as plain as day, that the
very same moral principles with those implied in " the Phi-
losophical Catechism,** commended themselves to the
common sense and conscience of Enghshmen; and that
these, taken in connection with the o^^o^itQ political prin-
ciple, led to an opposite practical conclusion? Let the
*' Guardian'* explain itself in this matter, or else let it
frankly withdraw its imputation.

We have defended the king of Naples from the High Tory
point of view, because such (as we^ pointed out) is the tra-
ditional Neapolitan principle, and his own ; and because it is
the basis on which this '^Philosophical Catechism" pro-
ceeds. For ourselves who write, as we have already said, we
do not hold this principle ; and yet let it not be supposed
that we regard the King's conduct as on other grounds in-
defensible : far from it. Onlv let it be conceded that there
exists throughout the " orbis terrarum,** (at least the Euro-
pean *' orbis") an organised political party, unspeakably
formidable from its numbers, its union, its determination
and energy ; and the object of whose whole endeavours is
the destruction of the entire social fabric, and the construc-
tion of Society on principles directly at variance with
Christian morality. And let it further be conceded (as
indeed is evidently probable) that in order to resist these
men successfully, a strict union and concentration of the
opposite force is indispensable, insomuch that in a kingdom
like Naples, a Constitutional Government cannot keep its
ground against them. We are neither professing to prove
that such is really the state of things, nor even expressing
our own conviction that it is so ; but it is quite certain that
numbers of able and good men, with great means of judg-

1851.] TTie Guardian and '' a Tlieory on Lying:' 209

ing, think such to be the true account, and that the king
of Naples coincides with the opinion.

We confess then that it appears to us the very pedantry
and fanaticisni of morality, which, under such circum-
stances, would impose on King Ferdinand the obligation of
maintaining the Constitution. He never dreamed, when
he took the oath, of binding himself under such a contin-
gency, nor can any sound morality hold him bound. We
maintain indeed, in the very teeth of the " Guardian,*'
that it is precisely those '' instinctive and prima facie sen-
tinients** of morality, justly eulogised by our opponent,
which would cry aloud with an unmistakcable voice against
so preposterous a notion. It is the dictate of common sense
to say, that a Constitution like the English, which has
been the growth of ages, and has come down to us with
every prescriptive sanction, claims an allegiance at the
hands of our Queen, altogether different from that which
we can reasonably demand from King Ferdinand, towards
a dry body of rules, the mere creation of his own will,
which has never for a moment been in peaceful and har-
monious operation, and which enjoys no prescription what-
ever.

We now come to the " Guardian's** second instance of
Catholic "lying:** and in doing so, we have greatly to
change our sphere of observation ; to descend from one of
the highest in station to one of the obscurest among living
Catholics; from the King of Naples to Mr. Gawthom.

It appears, then, that this gentleman, wishing to elicit
from the " Archbishop of Canterbury** an explanation of
his real sentiments on Presbyterian Ordination, and fearing
that if known to be a Catholic he might fail in so doing,
wrote a mendacious letter, feigning to be a convert from
dissent to the Establishment, and inserting his Christian
name as his surname. We beg to express, once for all,
our unhesitating judgment, that such conduct is not merely
mean, dishonourable, and ungentlemanly, but utterly inde-
fensible on the principles of morality; and a course of
conduct, for which the hope of saving thereby a million of
souls would have been no justification. However, let us
compare it with the line of action displayed on the other
side.

The Morning Chronicle, having characterized Mr, Gaw-

VOL. XXXI.~No. LXI. U

210 TIta Guardian and "a Theory on Lyiitg.** [SepL I

thorn's contluct as detestable beyond the wildest imagiaa-
tious of fiction, proceeds to interpret a. passage in one of
Mr. Gawthoni's letters, as implying thjit such conduct had
received the sanction of his "spiritual directors." On
September 6th, Mr. Gawthoni writes a letter to the Morn-
la-r Chronicle {to be seen in the " Tablet" of September
13th), in which he expressly mentions that he did not
'" allude to those who have the direction of his conscience."
The "Morning Chronicle" of that date (alluding there-
fore, we suppose, to some earlier letter of Mr. Gawthora's)
says, " once for all we inform Mr. Gawthorn that we decline
publishing any letters he ina^ write to us :" and has.^nce
kept so strictly to its resolution, that it has never so mucit
a3_ given a hint, that its charge against Mr. Gawthom'a
spiritual director was erroneous. Now conipaie tins
conduct with Mr. Gawthoni's own, which the" Chronicle"
BO severely reprobates. Mr. Gawthorn uever intended any
permanent deception of any kind whatever. That which
ne desired to elicit, was not a falsehood but a truth ; viz..
Dr. J, B. Sumner's real opimous _ou the matter in hand.
The means by which he elicited this, was the assertion of
a falsehood, which from the first he had resolved to retract
60 soon as it had served his purpose ; nor even for that
tnirpoae did he deceive more than one single individnal.
The ^tfrmoncHi impression which ho aimed at producing,
■was in no reaiiecta false one, but simply true. But ibe
" Chronicle," having given its readers to understand on
Mr. Gawthorn's alleged authority, that Cathohc directors
had sanctioned a course of conduct, which it designated as
unimaginably detestable, — and having learned that this is a
simple /ahefiood, — use their utmost endeavours, that the
whole body of their readers shall remain all their lii'e under
the impression that this unmitigated falsehood, a false-
hood tending grossly to caluumiate the whole priesthood
oi' a rival religion, is a tritth. We do not see how, on the
moat unliivourable interpretation, Mr. Gawthorn's decep-
tion can bear a. moment's comparison with this base fraud,
this deliberate and foul slander.

We much fear that the " Guardian " may he compre-
hended under the same indictment. For in the " ^Notices
to Correspondents" of September Wth, we have these
simple words, " W. R. Gawthorn declined." Unless other-
wise informed, we can hardly doubt that the letter, bo
declined, was a copy of this vei-y letter, dated September

J

1851.] Tho Guardian and *'a Theory on Lying. ^* 211

6th, which we have ah-eady mentioned. At all events the
number for September 17th, gives its readers no kind of
hint as to Mr. Gawthorn's disclaimer, published in the
"Tablet'* of September 13th, though it had previously
endorsed the " Chronicle's "" imputation. So that] the
*' Guardian/' in its self-deceiving zeal against the vice of
lying, has exhibited that vice in its foulest and most odious
shape ; the deliberate calumny of an innocent and virtuous
body of men, a body of men acknowledged by itself to be
the priests of a Christian Church.

But this letter of Mr, Gawthorn's is really, on the whole,
of a nature so creditable to him, and tends so much to
replace him in the position from which he had fallen, that
it is only fair to him to record it. It is as follows :

" To the Editor of the * Morning Chronicle.^

"Sir, — I hope your sense of justice will allow jou to publlsli a
few words in vindication of the Catholic Church, which some words
of mine appear to hare involved in a responsibility for my late act.

" Let me say, then, distinctly, that when I spoke of friends who
took a favourable view of that act, I did not allude to those who
have the direction of my conscience, or who are in any way respon-
sible for what I say or do. My act was purely my own — the mere
impulse of zeal and love for the Catholic Religion ; although as I
now view it, and as it has been brought before me by those to whom
I owe respect and obedience, utterly unjustifiable. All of us are
liable to error ; of mine I can only say, that it was a very wrong
act, prompted by a very right motive, but not therefore excused
in the sight of the Catholic Church, which docs not allow her chil-
dren to commit a breacli of truth, even though they could thereby
save a world of souls. I am, Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

W. R. GAWTHORN.

47, Holywell Street, Westminster,
6th Sept., 1851."

It will still further illustrate the deep unfairness of the
Protestant press and the very different measure meted
forth to Protestant and Catholic delinquencies respec-
tively, if we turn our attention to one or two proceed-
ings, like those of Mr, Gawthorn, in which Protestant
writers have indulged. In this connection, Mr. Hobart
Seymour deserves prominent mention. This gentleman
has published a work entitled, *^ Mornings among the
Jesuits at^ Kome ;'' the nature of which is sufficiently

2l2 The Guardian and " a Theory on Lying.** [Sept.

explained by the title. Now, what was the impression in
regard to his real opinions, which he conveyed to the Jesuit
Fathers as the preliminary of these interviews ? Let us
hear his own words :

'' Thej imagined that I was unacquainted with the controversy
between the Churches : that / was disposed in my principUi end
views to join the Church of Borne : that I teas cdready convinced that
1 ouglU to join her communion, and that mt/ objections were otdy a

sort of makebelieve They, therefore, were induced to express

themselve more freely arid openly, less guardedly, than perhaps they

would otherwise have done 1 dared not distinctly to assume the

position of Protestant controversialist, as it would have led to

their immediate withdrawal of all communication with me

This necessitated me to great caution on my part, and obliged ma
to Jiold back many things that I might otherwise have urged, and
in all faithfulnets should liave urged.*' — (pp. 5, 6.)

Now where is the difference in principle between this

S acceding and Mr. Gawthorn*s? Will you say that
r. Seymour's object was only to elicit from his opponeuts
their real opinions, which otherwise they might have been
disinclined to give ? This is precisely Mr, Gawthora's
case also. It is true that Mr. Seymour does not expressly
enunciate a falsehood; but then even Mr. 6awthoru» in
some inexplicable way, persuaded himself that he wrote
no express and direct lie : though we are far from denying
that, m actual expressions, he was much the more menda-
dacious of the two. But let it be observed that Mr.
Seymour, throughout the whole series of these conversar
tions, at every turn of the argument, for the express pur-
pose of confirming his friends in that utterly false
impression of his character which he was anxious to con-
vej^, systematically and habitually **held back many
thmgs " which, on his principles, he "in all faitf^idneu
should have urged :*' a system of deceit far more elaborate,
and long contmued, and perpetually recurring, than Mr.
Gawthorn's. Mr. Gawthom, moreover, wrote only one
letter, and that in the character of a stranger ; whereas
the parties on whom Mr. Seymour practised his deception,
were men with whom he professed to be on the most
friendly terms, and from whom he was receiving kindness
and hospitality. Another comparison admits of being
made. The "Morning Chronicle,*^ on first . publishing
the Gawthom correspondence, was clamorous for somo

1 85 1 .] The Guardian and *' a Theory on Lying:' 2 1 3

public disavowal on the part of Catholic authorities. As
the " Tablet ** observed, it was no very modest expecta-
tion: but on the whole, there was far more disposition on
the part of Catholics to admit its reasonableness, than
could have been expected with any show of reason. That the
** Tablet,*^ indeed, should disavow it, was fair and natural :
but the Bishop of Birmingham, at a public meeting, took
the pains to mention the matter, in order to express his
disapprobation ; nay, and Mr. Gawthorn himself, as we
have seen, takes an early opportunity to express his regret
and retractation. But as to Mr. Seymour, not one word
do we find of regret or disavowal from any portion of
his party, much less from any " Bishop,'* and much less
Btill from himself. The whole thing stands unblushingly
recorded.

Now we were curious enough to look back at ''the
Guardian's'* criticism on Mr. Seymour's book, in order to
see how great sensitiveness there would be to the evil of
*' l.ving," where the oflfender was not a Catholic but an
** Evangelical." Wonderful to relate, (see " Guardian"
of June 10th, 1849,) the Reviewer will not take on him-
self so much as to declare positively that the act of decep-
tion was wrong. " Without entering on the question,^*
quoth he, *' of the propriety of allowing the priests to con-
verse under this mistake, we may allow that their error does
not at all invalidate the worth of Mr. Seymour's report."
So wide is the difference of " the Guardian's" judgment
on the same ofience, according as a Protestant or Catholic
is guilty of it.

As we are on the subject of Mr. Seymour's book, it may
not be amiss to remind our readers, that the '* Rambler,"
on the authority of those Jesuits who were mixed up in
the conversations, brought against Mr. Seymour charges of
misrepresentation, in comparison with which Mr. Gaw-
tiiom s awkward imposture is as a molehill to a mountain ;
and which, if discovered in a Catholic, would have gone
down to posterity in every Protestant text-book to the end
of time, as an irresistible proof of ** Popish mendacity."
Mr. Seymour however, we rather believe, has replied upon
this ; and as we have not had the opportunity of examinmg
the state of the case, we leave this part of the subject to
those who have.

We shall adduce one further illustration, and so con-
clude; and this illustration shall be from the Quarterly

214 The Guardian and ^' a Theory on Lying.'* [Sept.

organ of that self-same party, of which the *' Guardian'' is
the hebdomadal representative, — from "the Christian
Remembrancer.'' This periodical, in its number for
October, 1850, (p. 514,) gave the following account of the
tenets held by a Mr. Jerson, a rationalist : '* Our Lord was
a mere preacher of natural religion ^ somewhat in advance
of his age ; contrary to his intentions, his followers
tmposed upon this simple germ a mass of traditions, sys-
tems, dogmas. Christianity attached to itself Pauline,
Judaising, Roman, Pagan elements by successive accre-
tions, until it became what it is.'' The writer proceeds to
say, that this account of *' the origin of the existing dog-
matic Christianity" is "substantially identical" with that
of Father Newman ; and that in saying this he " only states
the plain fact," Now consider the gravity of this accusation,
both as regards Father Newman and the Catholic Church.
That he holds a simply infidel principle, and regards the
whole fabric of Catholic doctrine as ** imposed" upon the
Christian religion, ^^ contrary to the intention of its
Fourider/^ is a pretty strong statement to make agamst a
Catholic priest. That one who has published such opinions
is permitted to preach and hear confessions, nay, is greatly
looked up to by Catholics in general, this is a pretty strong
statement to make against the Catholic Church. That
Father Newman, when a Protestant, was most undoubtedly
zealous for a cast of opinions the very opposite to this, is a
still further fact ; both as rendering so monstrous a charge
the more improbable, and also as making the charge
against the Catholic Church the more grievous. A person
endued with any real regard for the virtues of veracity and
straitforwardness, could not even, in the first instance,
have brought himself to make a charge like this, unless in
temporary inadvertence as to its real nature, except on
some very irresistible and cogent proof. The whole proof
which he so much as alleges, is the following passage from
certain lectures delivered by the great Oratorian :

*' What Anglicans call the Roman corruptions, were but instances
of that very same doctrinal la\r, which was to be found in the early
Church ; and in the sense in which the dogmatic truth of the prero-
gatives of the Blessed Virgin may be said in the lapse of centuries
to have grown upon the consciousness of individuals, in that same
sense did, in the first age, the mystery of the Blessed Trinity also
gradually shine out and manifest itself more and more completely
before their minds.**

1851. J 771^ Guardian and ^' a Theory on Lyings 215

Such is the passage which compelled, it seems, this
writer confidently to ascribe to Father Newman the
opinion, that both the doctrine of the Trinity and also these
prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin, were dogmas imposed on
Christianity, contrary to the intention of its Founder.
Why, as all our readers will see, so far from this passage
necessitating such a conclusion, it is not even reconcilable
with it on any fair system of interpretation.

But far worse is to come. Mr. Ward was writing a
pamphlet about that time, addressed to*' the Guardian,^'
and drew special attention to the allegation of the ** Chris-
tian Remembrancer ;** he also earnestly begged the Editor's
attention to another passage in the self-same lectures,
which was as follows: The Catholic Church

** is the organ and oracle, and notbiog else, of a supernatural doc-
trine, which is independent of indimduals^ given once for all, coming
down from the first ages, and so deeply and intimately embosomed in her
that it cannot be clean torn out of her, even if jou would try ; but
gradually and majestically comes forth into dogmatic state, as time
goes on and need requires ; still by no private judgment, but at
the will of The Giver, and by tlie infallible elaboration of the whole
body ; and which is simply necessary for ike salvation of the soul,,,, It is
a sacred deposit and tradition.''

On this passage Mr. Ward remarks, that " if Father New-
man had been aware of Mr. Jerson^s statement, and had
wished to express distinctly the precise contradictory to it,
it it difficult to see how he could have used more explicit
language.*' Mr. Ward then proceeds: "As several
readers of the Christian Remembrancer may not have
looked through Father Newman's Lectures, I cannot
doubt that the Editor's sense of justice will lead him to
insert this passage, when his attention is drawn to it ; in
order that his readers may judge for themselves how far he
has truly represented Father Newman's doctrine." And
Mr. Ward mentions in a subsequent work, that he
sent a private letter, with his pamphlet, to the Editor of the
" Christian Remembrancer," drawing his special attention
to this passage, and to this alone, in the whole pamphlet.

We suppose it will hardly be believed by those unaware
of the circumstance, that from that day to this no allusion
has been made to the subject, in the pages of the " Remem-
brancer." As no answer has been attempted, we cannot
but assume that no answer is forthcoming^ and that the

2IG Tlie Guardian and ** a Theory on Lying^ [Sept.

Editor is now aware that be made a simply calumnious
charge. And yet he does all that m him lies, in order that
the readers of his Review may believe this unspeakably
injurious accusation to be true, which he himself lies under
the ignominy of having invented, and which he now knows
to be utterly and absolutely /aZ*e ; and all this, for the sake
of such poor controversial advantage, as may be derivable
Irom the unscrupulous use of calumny and falsehood. If a
Catholic had been detected in anything one-half so
atrocious, when should we have heard the last about
" doing evil that good may come,^' " lying for the advan-
tage of the Church/* &c. , cfcc. ? Whereas, in this instance,
we find the '^ Guardian,** with all its zeal against the vice
of lying, and its high-minded commonplaces about the
excellence of veracity, is satisfieAto praise the various con-
tents of the party *s Quarterly, without so much as a pass-
ing allusion to this unblushing mendacity. Nor, from that
day to this, has any single member of the party expressed
the faintest regret at the circumstance.

Mr. Gawthorn, for a purpose, with the intention of
deceiving but one individual, and him only for a short
time, makes a false statement indeed, but one which is
injurious to no one; viz., that he, an unknown "Fran-
cis/* is a convert to the Establishment from Dissent, and
is jealous for the purity of the said Estiblishment*s Pro-
testantism. Immediately, from every Catholic quarter, are
heard disclaimers ; and before a week passes, the culprit
himself confesses his fault, and begs forgiveness. On the
other side it is not some obscure partizan, but the party's

Principal theological organ, which utters the base false-
ood ; its tendency is to injure n^ost deeply, and for an
indefinite period, the person against whom it is directed,
and to disseminate a most foul libel against him and his
Church. But here no voice of disclaimer is forthwith
heard; rather the lie is sped on its way by the assenting
silence of the whole number. And yet, (will it be believed ?)
it is one of this silently assenting party, who has the
effrontery to bring against Rome the charge of " under-
mining that simple, natural love of truth, and fear of false*
hood, which the human heart, when left to itself, con-
fesses.'* " Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of
thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast the mote out
of thy brother's eye/*
That '' Home has a theory on the subject of lying/' is

1851.] The Guardian and *' a Theory on Lying:' 2l7

most certain ; and upon that theory such proceedings as
the above, are immoral and discreditable. Will the writer
in the " Guardian^^ put forth any counter-theory on which
they are otherwise? or, as he prefers, (God save the
mark !) *' instinctive and prima facie sentiments/' to a sys-
tematic theory, will he produce the persons to whose
*' instinctive and prima facie sentiments' such proceedings
are otherwise than ^ odious ? If he does so, we have
only to express our intention of avoiding the company of
guch persons, as we should of men infected with the
plague.

But we must not conclude without recording the
'•Chronicle's'' comment on Mr. Gawthoni; which, in
time to come, may really be a valuable fact, as shewing
posterity, in an amusing shape, how (catholics are judged,
m the 19th century, for offences which Protestants so
readily, and so unblamed, commit. The passage is almost
incredible, but its genuineness is undoubted.

"As to this miserable creature, Gawthorn, it is a waste of words
to describe his conduct in the transaction. A more base and
revolting fraud — ^ more complete negation of every moral princi-
ple, the lie being varied with every circumstance of degrading
hypocrisy — it were impossible to conceive. The wildest fiction that
ever atiribuied any conceivable violaiion of tiiUh and decency to the pat»
(em-monster, which is nicknamed a Jesuit, never excogitated anything
half so detestable as this fact, which is now before us — a fact which has
serious bearings far wider than the detection of Gawthorn. We
ehall not be urged by our indignation to accuse the Roman Catho-
lic Church of the vice which has been displayed by its proselyte ;
but there is no denying that a systematic disregard of truth is the
popular charge against a whole religious system, and this is a case
which must go far, unless disavowed, towards accrediting and
enforcing the popular estimate. This is no theory of the economy,
no mere instance of the discijdina arcani, no esoteric doctrine from
Escobar, but a solid, substantial fact, performed here, iu this living
England, in the month of July Ubt past. The perpetrator of this
i$icrediUe wickedness,'' &,c,, &c.

2 18 Tlie Moralities of Legislatiotv-- [Sept

Art. X. — Letter to His Grace the Archbishop of Dyblin, on the
subject of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, and the Charge addressed to
thz Clergy of Dublin in 1851. Bj Lord Mojtteagle. Dublin,
Hodges and Smith.

^l^HE noble Peer, whose pamphlet lies before us, has come
.1 boldly forward, to vindicate those generous views
which he openly asserted in his seat in Parliament, But
not only by his speeches, but still more by the splendid,
manly, and noble-hearted protests, which he has indelibly
impressed on the Journals of the House, has Lord Mont-
eagle gained the respect and gratitude of every Catholic.
He now undertakes to answer Dr. Whateley's Charge,
in which the exclusion of Ireland from the Ecclesiastical
Titles Act, proposed by Lord M., was pronounced to be
an injustice. We fully award to the temporal Peer the
victory over the so-called spiritual; for nothing can be
clearer to any ordinary mind, than the injustice of visiting
on the Irish Episcopate, an imaginary aggression in
England.

But we hardly dare repine at this one additional iqjus-
tice, in the accumulated mass of iniquity, of which that
legislative measure is made up. Indeed, this one clear
injustice has served, perhaps more than any other, to show
in its true light the immoral character of the recent penal
Act. Some readers may be startled by this strong word :
but we hesitate not to say, that, however high its sanction,
the late nieasure is unbased on any sound moral principles,
or rather in fact contradicts them. And moreover we will
boldly assert, that whatever may be the mischiefs of the
Act, none is comparable to the manner, in which it must
unhinge, in very many minds, respect for law, and for those
who frame it.

We can hardly conceive a more fatal severance, than
that between legislation and moral principles, in the mind
of a people. By a great many enactments, a certain
small proportion of persons ixiay consider theniselves
aggrieved. Not only where crime is punished will the
delinciuent whom the law strikes murmur in secret, but
even in very innocent provisions, hardship may be inflicted

1851.1 The Italian Church. ' 219

which provokes complaints. A turnpike act may be
exceedingly disagreeable to those who travel on a road ;
and provoke Rebecca and her followers, to come forth by
moonlight, and overthrow the obnoxious barriers. But in
all this, passion and interest have the chief influence ; and
none of the discontented parties protests or disobeys, upon
moral principles, believed by him to be impugned or violated
by the law. It would require a fanatic to find God's law
assailed by any ordinary Act of Parliament.

But it is a very different thing, when a law is passed,
which a very considerable portion of the population consi-
ders unjust, wicked, contrary to the law of God, to the
principle of religion, to the rights of conscience. No one
can doubt that authority is safest, and society best
founded, when the preacher can boldly inculcate obedience
to law, and the moralist can treat of such obedience as a
duty. But what can be more dangerous, than a clash and
collision between obedience and conscience, and a convic-
tion that disobedience alone can satisfy the claims of this
inward monitor? And if further, this is not the feeling of
a confined or peculiar class, guided by a common interest,
as its impulse, but is the solemn determination of a body,
that has no bond but one of principle, which contains with-
in it every sphere and state of society, peerage, nobility,
gentry, professions, trades, labour, and pauperism ; with
ecclesiastics of every grade in the Church ; — then indeed
it must be acknowledged, that it has been a hazardous cast,
in the lottery of party-legislation, which, to gain a tri-
umph, has risked every reverential feeling, on the part of
such a body, for the deliberate decisions of authority.

A law passed in a constitutional state is supposed to be
the determination of the people. Its sovereignty speaks
and acts ; and as Ireland, no less than England, forms
part of the Empire, Ireland is considered, in legal and con-
ventional parlance, concurrent in the ** Ecclesiastical Titles
Act.'* Now that this is a fiction, an untruth, who can
doubt ? Ireland protests energetically against it : she re-
jects, repudiates, spurns, hates and abhors it. It is law
ap^ainst Ireland's will, because against her holiest feelings,
because it outrages what she loves best. Nor is this all.
The people of Ireland consider it in direct opposition to a
great pnnciple, which can only be asserted by a non-observ-
ance of the law. For the first time in our generation, the
legislature sends to that island an Act, which disintegrates.

220 Tli£ Moralities of Leffislatiofi — [Sept.

in the mind of every Catholic, that la nearly all its popu-
lation, the generally admitted, combination between the
law and duty. They are put into antagonism; and the
question is now asked by millions: *' which must I obey?
for I cannot by one act obey both/* And let it be observed,
that the question comes home not to the uneducated, nor
the ignorant, nor the dissolute, nor the passionate, nor the
hasty, nor the negligent ; but to the learned, the wise, the
moral, the honest, the calm, the religious. And all these
answer, that to say, their country is a party to such a law,
would be a calumny, a lie, a contradiction to all that their
souls profess. They must then look on it as a legislation
forced upon them, contrary to the spiritof the constitution,
by a party stronger than themselves, millions though
they be.

Moreover, it is assumed, as a principle of all wise legis-
lation, that a law must be for the general benefit — all ought
to be partakers in its blessings. W hat then must be said of
the wisdom or morality of a law, which millions, that have
aright to the advantages of all national measures, agree in
considering a curse, an injury, and an abomination? It
must shake all confidence in the principles which guide the
imperial legislature ; seeing how reckless it is of the moral
feelings of vast multitudes, equally entitled to protection
and consideration.

.The result has been what might have been expected.
Besides the principal population of Ireland, a great body
in England, and still more in our colonies, concurs in
believing that the greater part of last session of parliament
was spent in passing a wicked and immoral law, one con-
trary to their recognized religious principles, which puts
them in the dilemma between obeying God or man, and
which sets their conscience against the exercise of their
habitual obedience to law. Nor is this a chance, an acci-
dent, the results of a sinister influence. It was foreseen ;
no one in his senses could have doubted, that government
knew it perfectly; otherwise they must have thought the
whole body of Catholics an unprincipled set. But it is
clear they foresaw it. In the closing speeches of the House
of Lords, the only attempt made to soothe the feelings of
outraged conscience, consisted in the insinuation that the
law would not be found practically oppressive, would not
interfere with religious rights. This was a recognition of
the theoretical grievance; it was only a further immorality.

1851.] The Italian Church. 221

It was avowing a principle that laws ought to be passed,
which beforehand, there is a sense it would be unjust to
execute as they stand.

But there is much more than this. The idea of punish-
ment is associated, in the ordinary minds of men, with that
of crime. This is a moral feeling. All know that God
does not punish without guilt : and the great rule of human
legislation should be, to approach as near as possible to
the divine. The bulk of the people, too, will givj to the
objects of penal enactment a name. They know that a
murderer, a robber, a burglar, a swindler, a coiner, a
drunkard, is a man liable, and justly so, to chastisement ;
and some of them by fine, and in default, <&c., imprison-
ment. But among Catholics, at least, the name of Arch-
bishop or Bishop has not yet become synonymous with
'•delinquent.'* On the contrary; we may say that the
character of Ireland's prelates is one for which veneration
and holy afiection alone are felt. It is, moreover, a sacred
and reli^ous office which they hold. Now, from the pre-
sent legislation, one of two things must follow. Either the
Irish people, from peer to peasant, must be expected to be
converted, by it, to the belief, that their bishops are men
only fit to be the special subjects, for a law imposing heavy
fines, and so begin to put their very name into the list of
finable worthies above ffiven ; or else they must believe, as,
(in such an alternative) thank God, they do, that a gross
injustice, and consequently a foul immorality, has been
committed, by a legislative measure directed exclusively
against them, as though they formed a definite class of
culprits, by virtue of their office, and amercing them
heavily as such. Then a man of common mind, that is,
one unaccustomed to separate the ideas of immorality and
delinquency, measures (no doubt vulgarly) the magnitude
of the ofience by the greatness of the penalty. When,
therefore, he reads in the papers of the eighth of Septem-
ber, that two men named Cummins knocked down a
policeman, kicked him on the face, tore out a handful of
nis hair, and dreadfully bruised him, so that he cried out
** murder,'* and was rescued by several officers, and also
assaulted two civilians ; that the magistrate declared the
assault to be *' most unprovoked and brutal, and therefore
felt himself bound to infiict a severe punishment, which he
hoped would be a salutary lesson to the prisoners,'* and
Uierefore fined them '* twenty shillings, ov fourteen days,*'

222 The Moralities of Legislation— [Sept

for each attack on a civilian, and inflicted a month's im-
prisonment (eqnivalent by the above equation to forty
shillings fine,) for the assault on the policeman; when he
reads in the same public records of the 18th of August,
that a gentleman refusing his name at a police office, " but
whose general style and appearance indicated his rank
in society to be that of an officer in her Majesty's naval
service, convicted of being drunk and disorderly, and
of assaulting the prosecutor and an officer on duty, so
that it required a dozen men to take him into custody,
was fined *^ forty shillings for being drunk and disorderly,
and forty shillings for assaulting the officer ;*'* he must
conclude that the law considers the crime of his bishop,
for which the minimum punishment awarded is a fine of
one hundred pounds, as in the proportion of fines greater
than drunkenness, assaults of policemen, and almost any
amount of rioting, fighting, and maiming. Indeed, ono
bishop's offence would cover the fines of a weekly indul-
gence in these i>etty excesses. And, further, such a per-
son as we contemplate would learn, that in the eyes of
some members of the enlightened House of Commons, so
grievous was the i>ossible crime of Catholic bishops, in
legislating against which a whole session was taken up,
that they deeme<l transportation a fitting punishment for
its second commission, that is the chastisement of thieves,
burglars, forgers, and often murderers. And some pro-
posed that most un-English and unknown penalty of
deportation, or banishment, as fitting for this case. In
other words, while the Mazzinis, the Achillis, the Struves,
the Zambianchis,t the Ledrn- Rollins were to be welcomed
to the English shore, when they ran away from their own
countries to escape their justice, the guilt of a Catholic
bishop, contemplated by the navf Act was considered so
great, as to render him unworthy of a standing place in
a country, which deems those worthies good enough for
itself.

* Those examples have beea taken at random, from papers lying
at hand.

tTho butclior who shot in cool blood, the priests at San Caltsto in
Rome ; now or lately in London. Had he been an Englishman
he would have been called a murderer — and hanged. Being an
Italian, he is a patriot— and honoured.

1851.] The Italian Church. 223

We are not pretending to follow the reasoning of those
who are slaves to the supremacy of law, and who, having
implicit confidence in the omnipotence of Parliament,
think the contravention of any capricious legislation at
once a crime. But we are trying to argue, according to
the process of mere unsophisticated minds, that believe in
the existence of wrong and right, based on principles higher
than even the Upper House, more sovereign than the
Throne itself. Now, one who held so unconstitutional a
theory, and did not believe '' the Nation " to have the
power of creating moral principles, would proceed to ask :
* what, then, is the crime or offence, over which, to express
it, the congregated wisdom of this mighty people sat for
six months, and ended in subjecting it to one of the
heaviest money- penalties on the Statute-book ; especially
considering that £lOO is no small portion of a Catholic
bishop's income ?'* Well, a Catholic would come to the
conclusion that the offence consists in the bishop's speak-
ing a truth ; in saying what it would be a lie for him to
contradict or deny. Were any one to ask Archbishop
CuUen, or Bishop Ryan respectively: ^ Are you Archbishop
of Armagh ? are you Bishop of Limerick ?'* and each were
to answer " No,*' there is not a Protestant from Lord
John Russell to Mr. Stowell, who would not say that the
prelate had spoken contrary to his own belief and convic-
tion, and had told a vile untruth. He would be taunted
with insincerity, mental reservation, equivocation, perhaps
downright lying. It is truly the very position of our Lord
before the High Priest of the Jews ; when he put to Him
the question : ** Art thou the Christ, the Son of the living
God V* They knew His own consciousness on the subject,
and that He could not deny, nor evade, the truth. And the
consequences of avowing it, were to be fatal to Him. So
with the Bishop. Were he to speak according to his
conscience, he commits a crime punishable by a «£lOO
fine.

But the Catholic might reason thus : "he is certainly my
Bishop. If I deny this, I become a schismatic or worse ;
for I belong to his diocese. Now, how is this connection
established ? Thus ; I am a native of Limerick, say, and

he is the Bishop of, Hold ! do not pronounce the

name; for there must be crime in your uttering what the
law holds in such abhorrence in your Bishop, that in him
it would visit the phrase with <£lOO fine. No man with

2-24 The MoralUiesi of Legislation — [Sept.

moral sense will see the distinction. If it was an offence
in the banished Stuart to call themselves kings of England,
every one sees, it was participation in the guilty to give them
the title, even in a toast. But in the nresent precious
piece of religious legislation (for it is clearly the legislatioa
of one religion against another.) a Catholic must try to
persuade himself, that not the slighest guilt is incurred by
giving a title, the assumption of which subjects him, to
whom he gives it, to heavy penalties. Does not this con-
found the moral sense, completely? If you assert His
Grace Dr. Murray, to be Archbishop of Dublin, or greet
him by that title, you commit no offence : if he accepts it,
he has become a malefactor before the law !

What can any plain-minded, and honest-hearted, indi-
vidual say of such a law, but that not only it is unjust, but
that it is truthless, immoral, and persecuting, f^or what
can be more persecuting than a law which gives you no
alternative, between incurring a penalty, or denying what
you are religiously and conscienciously convinced of?
Persecution is a forcing of men to belie their religious con-
viction, by suffering, awarded for its avowal ; and every
Catholic Bishop in Great Britain and Ireland is uow
subject to this process.

But though it is natural that the upholders of this most
amiable and hi^h-minded Bill, which will make 1851 as
memorable as does the great Exhibition, should employ
every effort to wipe from it the stain of persecution, it is
beyond the reacn of any human power to do it. I^et us
take a possible, and in time, a certain case. The Bishop

of goes to receive the reward of his labours. It is

as necessarv for a successor to be provided for him, as it is
for the Catholic Church to be episcopal. If the local ter-
ritory over which he presided be not furnished with a new
Bishop, it becomes acephalous, presbyterian, or anything
else but Catholic. And if see after see were thus to be
left, in time the constitution of the Church would be
changed. Now, how is provision to be made for this sue-*
cession? By only one possible means, according to Cath-
olic doctrine, and that is the very means which the law has
rendered penal. Can it be denied, that episcopal govern-
ment is an ecclesiastical requirement of the Catholic
Church? Is it not then persecution to prevent its exist-
ence, by attaching heavy penalties to its attainment? Yet
existence cannot be given to it except by a " Brief^

185L] Tlie lldlian ChUrcK.' 225

Bescript, or Letters Apostolical, or other instrument or
writing/* "obtained or procured from Rome/* And the
procuring of such an instrument subjects any one to £lOO
penalty. Is not this religious persecution ?

Again, let us suppose the document procured, it must be
put in use. The Bishop illegally appointed, at risk of a
severe mulct, must be consecrated. If evidence can be
procured, that the consecration takes place under the sanc-
tion of such a writing from Rome, there is ground, under
the act, for another suit, and the recovery of a similar fine^
notfroni one but from three or four Bishops. Yet conse-
cration is a religious rite, a function of the Church ; and
so is ordination, to the performance of which by a Bishop,
counsel learned in the law assure us, the withering and
annihilating provisions of the act apply. It is not lon^ ago
since England was startled into horror and pious indigna-
tion, because Count Guicciardini and some other gentle-
men of Florence were said to have been punished for
meeting to read the Bible. Yet the British Parliament
was at the very time seriously engaged in making it
severely punishable, for Catholic prelates to join in an act
as purely religious, as anything in a Bible conventicle could
be. And some members were proposing the veiy penalty
denounced as excessive at Florence, for nolding a religious
assembly— banishment. If one was an act of persecution,
wherefore is not the other ?

It may be said, indeed, that our Act is so framed, as to
render conviction difficult, through default of evidence.
Be it so. But this is no manner of excuse. It may prove
it to be a piece of purposelj^ powerless, and, therefore,
wanton legislation ; but the principle of persecution is there
all the same. ^ Men speaking the truth about themselves,
in their religious capacity, or meeting for a rehgious and
necessary purpose, are punishable by heavy penalties, not
to speak of legal expenses. We have no hesitation, there-
fore, in pronouncing the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, a most
unjust, a persecuting, and an immoral law.

But did time and space permit us to descend into the
manner in which it was carried, we should be able greatly
to strengthen our position. Does any one doubt, that per-
sons in both Houses, particularly in the Upper, sacrificed
their long-avowed principles, and their well-known feelings,
to the necessities, as they were deemed, of party ? Was

VOL. XXXI.— No. LXI. 15

i^.

22G TJie Hforallties of Legislation — [Sept

there ever, on any measure, heard in an assembly of gen-
tlemen, coarser abuse, fouler calumny, broader untruth,
than is reported in the papers to have been uttered in the
House of Commons against Catholics? Was there an
attempt to check the enunciation of crudities, hap-hazard
assertions, groundless tales, misquotations, misinterpreta-
tions, misapplications, and even mistranslations in docu-
ments referred to, so that they sei-ved to swell the cry,
inflame the unholy heat, fan the hateful flame, which a cer-
tain letter had created, and which served to bear forward
on a fiery flood, the crazy bark of persecuting legislature,
which had been rotting for twenty years in the supposed
Tory arsenal? When did the House of Commons listen
to more crooked, twisted, intricate, and thorny legal
opinions, than by alternate contradictions, the various law
officers of the Crown contrived here to plait and intertwine,
till literally, in homely phrase, there was no making head
or tail of the matter, but it had become as knottily com-
plex as a piece of sail in the Exhibition, whose nodosity is
attributed by scientific men to a gale off the Cape of Good
Hope, but by sailors to the agency of a less earthly power?
Was there one member who, in voting for the Bill, had the
remotest idea of the legal consequences of the measure,
whether it would be stringent or mild, practical or
inoperose, repressive of synodical action, or open for a car-
riage and four to drive through ; whether its object was to
protect the Catholic laity, or the Protestant public, against
the encroachnients of Rome, to satisfy the Anglican bench
or the Catholic clergy, (for even this was urged or prei-
tended,) to punish past aggression or prevent future pro-
gress, to protest against the Letters Apostolic or to silence
episcopal pastorals, to rob the Vatican of its thunders or
send a shell at the Flaminian gate ? What the Bill had to
do, what it must do, what it should do, or what it might
do, and all these with negatives in them, no breathing man
could aver that he knew, as (Jeducible from the combined
law of Attorney and Solicitor Generals, past and present
in the Session. Only one thing was determined, good,
bad, or indifferent, — the Bill must pass; no matter by
what combination of parties, by what colour of votes, by
what contradiction of motives ; whether, as the Whiff
boasted, through love of liberty, or as the evangeliciu

1851.] ne Italian Church. 227

avowed, through hatred of popery, it was all one ; the thing
must be done :

•* Recte si possis, si non, quocumque modo rem. *

There is, however, one episode in this matter, and it was
the closing one of the Jr^ession on which we wish more par-
ticularly to dwell, as illustrative of the reckless mode in
which we have been assailed. It would indeed have
remained out of the records of Parliament, had not a holy
zeal determined to close the session, as it opened, and
make it leave an echo behind, of the cry which it has pro-
lonsred through half a year. A-fter the great act was
accomplished, by which it was urged, the dignity of the
Crown had to be avenged, and the honour of the nation
vindicated ; after the blow had been struck, which retali-
ated, as it was supposed, on the Catholics of the Empire,
an imaginary aggression from the Holy See; after so much
pain had been inflicted in obedience to the popular will,
on many millions of subjects, it might have been naturally
expected, that no additional topic of irritation would have
been introduced into the session, but that some concession
would have been made to harmony and peace, so sadly
disturbed. But it was otherwise decreed. Even while
Her Majesty was on her way to close the sittings of the
legislatureT, by a speech into which phrases provocative of
new irritation had unnecessarily been thrust, the closing
debate was made subservient to religious hostility ; and
a noble Lord thought it right to heap up fresh combusti-
bles ; then to lay a new train, and* light it at once ; that,
burning by a slow match during the recess, it might be
ready to explode at the opening of next Parliament. We
will give the debate, as reported in the Times of
Augusts. ,^ ^

"PROTESTANT CHAPEL IN ROME.

** The Earl of Harrowby. — Having seen recently in the public
papers a strong desire expressed on the part of many of Her
Majesty's Protestant subjects in this country, and more particularly
en the part of the Protestant British inhabitants resident within the walls
of the city of Rome, for the erection of a select place of public wor-
ship within the walls of that capital, I am induced to address a
question on that subject to the members of ller Majesty's Govern-
ment. Hitherto the church of Rome has refused, to grant to the
Protestant subjects of Her Majesty permission to erect such a

228 Tlie Moralities of LegUlaiion" [Sept

building ; but under exidhvg circumstances^ when Uie church of Rome ii
waking large claims on the tolerance of this country, and indeed of all
other Protestant countries, perhaps the opportunity is not ill
chosen to apply again to the Court of Rome for that permission
which has hitherto been systematically and pertinaciously refused.
Your lordships are perhaps aware of the encouragement which has
hitherto been held out by her Majesty's Government to all our
chaplaincies in foreign countries, within which Protestant churchefl
have been established. Without asking the Government for that
assistance which has never been refused elsewhere, the parties to
whom I have just alluded are anxious to know whether Her
Majesty's Ministers will use their best offices with the Court of
Home to obtain from it permission to erect a suitable Protestant
church within the walls of the city of Rome for the worsliip of the
Protestant church of England ?

<< The Marquis of Lansdowne, who spoke in a very indistinct
tone, was understood to say that in consequence of the notice,
which he had received privately from his noble friend on this sub-
ject, he had made some inquiries regarding it at the Foreign-office,
lie found that no application had yet been made to the Court of
Rome for the erection of a Protestant place of worship within the
walls of Rome. It was true that a Protestant place of worship had
been erected for British subjects outside the walls of the city of
Rome, and that it was adequate for the number of persons who
attended Divine service within it. He was confident that when
any just complaint should be made on the subject by the British
inhabitants of Rome to his noble friend the Secretary ^f State for
the Home Department, his noble friend would not be slow in mak-
ing applications for its redress. Any applications at present for
the erection of a permanent building for the celebration of the
Protestant service of the established church, would not, he was
afraid, be attended with success. (Hear, hear.) Indeed, it was an
established maxim of the Court of Rome to have one degree of
toleration at Rome, and another for itself in all other countries.
(Hear, hear.)

*• The Earl of Habrowby spoke, as far as we could hear him, to
the following eflTect : — The question, my Lords, is not whether
there is any want of accommodation for the worship of our Protes-
tant countrymen at Rome, but whether we, as Protestants, are to
enjoy tlie same lihei'ty at Rome as the Roman Catholics^ native and
foreigners, enjoy here ? The accommodation which we have at Rome
for Divine worship is that of a common granary without the walls ;
and that is not a fit and decent place for divine worship. As to
anything of ecclesiastic splendour, that has hitherto been entirely
wanting ; and the question really is, whether the church of Rome
will or will not permit British Protestants to have some building
erected at their own cost, appropriated to their own worship within
the walls of Rome, just as the Roman Catholics of every coontrj

1 85 1 •! JTie Italian Ch urcfi. 229

hare their own places of worship in almost everj town in this
coimtrj. He hoped that the noble Secretary for the Foreign
Department would soon be called on to exercise his authority, and
to make applications to the Court of Rome for this permission, in
order thai the sincerity of its professions respecting toleration might he
put to the test without any disguise, (Hear, hear.)

**The Marquis of Lansdownb gave another reply but it was
nearly inaudible. All we could collect from it was, that if the
noble earl asked him whether he thought that the church of Rome
would admit English Protestants to the same degrees of religious
liberty in Rome as English and foreign Roman Catholics enjoyed
in England, his answer must be, — ' I am afraid not.'

" The Bishop of London. — My lords, I entirely concur in the
concluding obseryation of the noblo marquis that little success can
be hoped for in case any application is made by us for permission
to erect a Protestant chapel either in the city or in any part of
the dominions of the Bishop of Rome. The noble marquis has
well remarked, that whether we look at the past history of the
Court of Rome, or to the events which are still occurring there,
it is evident that there are two points of view in which toleration
is viewed by the Court and church of Rome, — namely, the tolera-
tion which is to be withholden from others, and the toleration
which is to be claimed and enjoyed by themselves. (Hear, hear.)
It is true that there is a granary at Rome used as a Protestant
chapel by our countrymen ; and that it is large enough for those
who usually attend it ; hid our countrymen are accustomed to pay their
deootions in buildings where the external and internal decorations are
proportional to the important sacred ohjects to which they are applied.
They are, therefore, not content to worship except in a huilding which has
soTnething like the appearance of a temple. In this country Roman
Catholics can already obtain with ease room and space to worship
God in the form which is most agreeable to their own conscience ;
but they are not content with that ; on the contrary, although they
know that they have already far more than sufficient room in their places
of worship, they hate put forth, under the auspices of the Bishop of Rome
himself , a proposal for huilding a magnlfcent cathedral to St. Feter in
this city, where the metropolitan cathedral is dedicated to St. Paul.
ITiey are anxious, too, to have it erected in great splendour. Surely,
thfUf they cannot hlame us if v^ are seeking to accomplish a similar
object in Rome, As to the difficulties thrown in the way of English-
men desirous of worshipping God at Rome in that splendour which
suits at once their ritual atid their habits, I have only to say that a
large sum of money has been obtained within the last few weeks,
not by indulgences (hear, hoar,) — for we must not shut our eyes to
the fact that the church of Rome has again had recourse to the
practice which originally caused the Reformation, I mean the
granting of indulgences to those who shall subscribe their money
to the building of this new cathedral, or, in other words, the salo

230 llie Moralities of Legislation — [Sepf .

of indulgences (hear, hear,) — for the erection of a Protestant
church or chapel in Rome without an appeal to any other argu-
ment than the attachment and love of British Protestants to the
church of England, its ordinances, and its ritual. (Hear, hear.)
Having seen the extraordinary document which has recently been promtU'
gated by the Bishop of Home, calling upon all the faithful to subscribe to
the erection of a Popish Cathedral in London, to be gof>emed by the
ih*dinary of London, his Eminence Cardinal Wiseman, I should have
deemed myself guilty of an unpardonable dereliction of duty if I
had remained entirely silent during this discussion.

**The Earl of Harrowby. — I wish to know whether Her Majesty's
Government has any objection to lay on the table the correspon-
dence which took place in the years 1839 and 1840 between oar
Minister and the authorities, lay and ecclesiastical, at Naples
respecting the application of certain British subjects to build a
chapel there for Protestant worship ? If I recollect the circumstan-
ces aright, application was made by the British consul on behalf
of the British residents at Naples to have a Protestant chapel
erected in that city. If I recollect rightly, the British Minister
was unwilling to interfere. Land, however, was purchased, and
the works were begun. The Archbishop of Naples was informed
of it, and immediately interposed his prohibition. Ultimately the
contract was obliged to bo cancelled, the ground was abandoned,
and the English Protestants were driven back to worship in the
drawing-room of the consul, where, I believe, they still continue to
worship. (Hear, hear.) We ought not to shut our eyes to the
tendency ojf acts like these, especially when the church of Rome is
omnipotent in its own temporal dominions, and is aiming to extend
its spiritual domination over every region of the continent. We
have been told that a great reaction has taken place, and that the
Pope is omnipotent in continental Europe. If we deemed it neces-
sary to complain of hi& proceedings in 1839 and in 1840, have we
not increased cause to complain of them now? The noble earl
concluded by repeating his question.

" The Marquis of Lansdowne said in a tone loud enough to be
heard throughout the House, '*Iwill make inquiry into the sub-
ject.*' He then proceeded to address the Earl of Harrowby for five
or six minutes across the table, but not a syllable of what he said
reached the gallery. The very tone of his voice was not heard
there, and, but for his gesticulations, we should have thought thftt
he was standing silent.

'< The Bishop of Oxford left his seat on the Episcopal bench,
came close to the noble marquis at the table, and held his hand
to his ear, as if anxious to drink in the sounds denied to the vulgar.
We applied to several persons below the bar to know whether they
had any, the slightest knowledge of what the noble marquis said,
but were informed by them that the communicatioa moat have

1851.] Tlie Italian Church. 23l

been intended to be confidential, as they could not even make a
gue8s,at its import,

**Atthe conclusion of this whispering, the Earl of Harrowbt
said that he would not press his question now, but gave notice, we
believe, of a motion on the subject of it for next session.*'

All this refers, as our readers will see, to a proposal to
build a p rotestant English chapel in Rome ; and we may
briefly add, that large sums of money have been collected
towards that scheme. At the same time, it is important
to trace this idea to its first origin. Is it then, that some
sudden burst of religious zeal has produced this desire to
worship within the Roman walls? Certainly not. A
motive as Christian as all else connected with anticatholic
legislation, gave rise to this new fervour. The case is as
foflows. The papers published some documents, emanat-
ing from the Holy See, and from the Archbishop of
riorence, approving of subscriptions in favour of an
*' Italian Church *^ to be built in London. With an inge-
nuity of which one paper has given many splendid speci-
mens in the course of this, and last year, this was con-
strued into a new act of aggression ; and of course retali-
ation, or reprisal was the natural suggestion of protestant
ecclesiastical morality. Take the following account of the
proposed plan from the Morning Post of July 1,

** The subjoined documents have recently been issued by the See
of Rome.* They will be received an the first step in the sequel to the
late aggressive act of the Bishop of Borne against the Queen and hei'
regality,''*

Here it is at once assumed, contrary, as we shall see, to
all truth, that this new Italian Church was a recent project,
and subsequent, or consequent, to the Establishment of the
Hierarchy.

The Times oiihQ 11th of August had one of those bold
articles, in which truth, justice, and common honesty are
cast to the winds, that form the great glory of that reckless
hater of whatever it chooses not to love. Alluding to the
debate^ of which we have given the report, it begins by
observing, that " the first proceedings of the recent session
were directed against the encroachments of the Bishop of

* One of the two documents, which follow this introduction, is a
Pastoral from the Archbishop of Florence ! So much for accuracy
in stating facts.

232 Tlie Moralities of Legislation — [Sept.

Rome, upon the national and ecclesiastical independence
of this kingdom ; the last words of the same Parliament
were devoted to the practicability of Protestant worship
within the walls of Rome/* It then proceeds to state that
the Pope *' has now decreed the erection of a new cathe^
draly on a magnificent scale, in some conspicuous part of
the metropolis.^' And after remarking: that "the same
Pope forbids altogether the worship of God after the rites
of the English church, and condemns our countrymen to
the performance of Divine service in a granary witnout the
gates/* it thus goes on.

<< At this moment there stands a Cathelral of St. George in the
borough of South wark, another Cathedral of St. Patrick has been
designed we believe for Westminster, and a third ' Metropolitan
Church of St. Peter* is now openly announced."

Here again it is clearly proclaimed that a new Church
has beea decreed by the Pope to be built in London, and
moreover a *^ Cathedral,** or '^ Metropolitan church : and
this now. Compare these expressions with Dr. Blomfield's
speech, and you will see how the statements of both coin-
cide. We elicit therefore from these data the following
protestant argument.

" The Pope has now decreed and ordered a new
Catholic Cathedral to be magnificently built in London ;
and this is a consequence of the re-establishment of the
Hierarchy in England, that is, of Papal Aggression;
therefore we will insist upon Protestants having a chapel
within the walls of Rome, instead of a CTanarv outside.
We are as much entitled to a chapel in xlome, as
Catholics are to a Church in London.**

This reasoning opens to us two different investigations.
Firsty has truth been stated in the basis of this argument?
and we lx)ldly answer ; No. Secondly, supposing all the
facts, either as they stand, or as they have been repre-
sented, do they warrant the reasoning? and again we
reply ; No.

1. The theory of the new Church, which has been put
before protestants, is therefore as ifbllows. " The Pope,
having estabhshed the Hierarchy, nothing daunted by the
late clamour, has proceeded boldly to another aggressive
act. This consists of an order to have a new Cathedral
church built in London, in honour of St. Peter.** This
statement is made up of untruths. We should feel

185 L] Tlie Italian Church. 233

reluctant to insinuate a charge of intentional departure
from truth against any individual ; but of such an actual,
though we hope unconscious, deviation, we are bound to
accuse the reported speech of Dr. Blomfield. Let us see
now the fallacies which have been put forth to abuse the
public mind.

1. " The Pope has now decreed or ordered the building
of a new Church in London.'* This is utterly false. It
is well known to Catholics, that for a long lapse of years,
their only tolerated worship was in Ambassadors' chapels.
Hence Spanish Place Chapel bore the name of the State
which supported it ; the Bavarian chapel is in Warwick
street, the Portuguese was in South street, and the Sar-
dinian still exists in Lincoln's Inn Fields, attached to the
ancient residence of the Sardinian embassy. Some of
these chapels have continued to receive support from the
countries whose name they bear, and amons: them the last-
named. The late Eight Rev. Bishop Poynter, nearly
thirty years ago, felt the want of an Italian Priest to assist
his countrymen ; and the government of Sardinia express-
ed a wish, that an Italian priest should ever be attached
to the Church which it helped to support. Arrangements
were made for this purpose, and most successfully. Still
it was found difficult to unite, in the same place of wor-
ship, an English and an Italian congregation. The Ger-
mans and the French have separate chapels, in which
prayers and instructions are habitually pronounced in their
own tongue. Instead of sermons in the Mass, as the
Italians were accustomed to have in their own country, it
was necessary to assemble them in the evening, to give
them religious instruction. There are days too which they
are naore used to keep holy, devotions which they are more
familiar with, than we are in England. Many other in-
conveniences were felt, which arose from discrepancy of
national customs, language, and feelings. Hence in the
year 1847, it was proposed to separate the Italians from
the English congregation by building a new church, more
in the quarter which they inhabit, more in accordance with
the forms to which they are accustomed at home, both as
to arrangements and as to ministration. This plan was
approved of by the Archbishop of Westminster, then Pro-
Vicar Apostolic ; and it was resolved to obtain the sanction
of the Holy See to the plan, and leave to make collections
for it in Italy. The Italian chaplain undertook the jour-

i..

234 The Moralities of Legislation — [Sept

ney ; and the following document was granted to him by
the S. Congregation of Propaganda Fide.

"Jacobus Philippus tituli Sanctse Marian ia Aracsali Sanctas Rom.
£cclesia3 Presbyter Cardinalis Fransoaius Sacras Congregatioois de
Propaganda Fide Praefectus, <fec. &c.

" Cum in frequeutissima Lodiueusl urbe plures Itali degant, qui-
bus baud facile Religionis subsidia praesto sunt, ut praesertim diyi-
ni yerbi praedicatioui intersint, ac poenitentiae Sacramento perfrui
valeant ; probandum sane visum est consilium quo pii yiri nonuuUi
Ecclesiam peculiariter pro Italis erigendam curant. Patet vero non
mediocrom, ut id fiat^ pecuniae summam requiri : atque hinc est
quod Italicae gentis opem imprimis expostulandam ii duxerint, at
Keligionis auxilia, quibus eadem tantopere abundat, fratribus inibi
oonstitutis uberius patere satagat. Proinde Sacra Congregatio de
Propaganda Fide opus huiusmodi universis Italiae Episcopis com-
mendandum censuit, quatenus prout temporum adiuncta, aliaqae
pia opera charitati fidelium commissa sinant, istud quoque iusinuent,
ac pecuniam pro viribus ad illud suppeditandam curent. Noyerint
autem sollicitudinem banc demandatam imprimis fuisse R. D.
Raphaeli Melia Presbjtero Romano et Missionario Apostolico, qui
per tres annos in praefata Londinensi urbe plurimum pro Italis
adlaborayit, eique documentum hujusmodi concedimus, ut omnimo-
dam fiduciam yaleat obtinere.

" Datum Romae ex iEdibus dictae S. C. de Propaganda Fide die
7 Decembris 1847.

"J. Pb. Cardinalis Fransonias Praefl
Loco t sigilli. ''Alexander Barnab6 Pro-Secret.*'

From this document it is clear that a church especially
for the use of Italians was planned in London in 1847, and
did not originate from the Pope, or from Rome: and that
the project was only aproved at Rome. On the 25th of
February, 1848, His Eminence Cardinal Orioli, Prefect of
the " S. Congregation of Bishops and Regulars,'* issued
a circular to all the Bishops of Italy, earnestly requesting
them to allow a collection in every Church in their dio-
ceses, in favour of this Church. And, as if to give greater
notoriety to this first origin of the Church in question,
our readers will recollect a document published, a few
months ago, in the papers, and alluded to by Lord Miuto,
to show that the Hierarchy was known to be projected in
1848; because it stated that *^ subscriptions would be
received in London by His Lordship the Vicar Apostolic,
now Archbishop of Westminster.*' This appear^ in the
Homan paper, and it was the prospectus of this vexy

1851.] The Italian Church. 235

church. Ignorance, therefore, cannot be pleaded of the
fact, that at least in 1848, the intention of building the
Italian Church was publicly avowed.

Affain in 1850, the same Italian priest had occasion to
visit Italy ; and he took advantage of the circumstance to
push the subscriptions in that country, which in the inter-
val had been suflFering from the republican tyranny. He
carried with him the following testimonial.

" The Rev. Doctor Melia being one of the Trustees of the Church to
be erected in London, for the benefit, not only of English Catholics,
but especially of Italians and other foreigners; We, Vicar Apostolic
of the London District, authorize him to collect alms in this District
for the said object by himself, or through other persons appointed
by him. We also warmly recommend this most interesting work
to the charity of the faithful, not only of England, but also of other
nations, for whose advantage the erection of the said Church is
principally intended.

" Given at our Residence, 35, Golden Square, London,

August the 10th, 1850. «'+ N. Wiseman."

' It cannot be doubted that the Church thus described in
1860, was the same as had been approved of, at Rome, in
1847, nearly three years previous. We may observe, that,
in the mean time, it had been proposed to enlarge the
scheme, by making it embrace other foreigners, as the
Spaniards, Poles, &c., by having chapels attached to the
church, appropriated to those nations, with their own clergy
to serve them. Accordingly in the Trust-deed alluded to
in the above document, the Trustees consisted of the
Bishop, two Italian (naturalised) priests, one Spanish, and
one Greek, gentleman. Application was made for ground
by these Trustees, before there was any appearance of the
Hierarchy.

Now it only remains to be seen, that the Church, which,
this year, has caused such alarm to the religious public in
England, is the self-same as was planned, approved, and
collected for, nearly three full years before the fancied
papal aggression was heard of. It is true that the wolf in
fable, showed a noble contempt for chronology, when he
wanted to devour the lamb ; and so doubtless do news-
papers. But here, at least, the case is too plain for cavil.
As the papal documents (so called) did not contain the
milliners descriptions of court dresses, after a di*awing-

236 771^ Moralities of Legislation — [Sept.

room, it is possible that the Editor of the Morning Post
did not consider it his duty to peruse it, before ordering it
to be printed. If he had, he must have seen that the
Roman document clearly refers to the church which pre-
ceded, in design, the introduction of the Hierarchy, and
was not it first sequel. It refers to the site, and specifies
the very sum in the contract for the original Italian
church. It alludes to Cardinal Orioli's circular of Feb.
1848, as beins: in favour of the same pious work, and refers
to Cardinal Wiseman's approbation, which was clearly given
to the Italian church of '47. In fact, it must seem a waste
of time, to prove what is evident fi:om the series of docu-
ments here produced.

The building of the Italian church, therefore mentioned
in the papers, and adduced by Dr. Blomfield, in proof, did
not emanate from the Pope; was not ordered by him ; was
not decreed. The Pope himself says, in the document of
Dec. 7, 1847 ; " it has appeared proper to approve the
design of some pious men, who are providing the erection
of a church peculiarly for the Italians.'*

2. It is not ** now '' that the Pope has even approved of
the plan, as the Times has it, *' has now decreed," *' Is
now announced." The Pope had approved of it three
years and a half before.

3. The Church is pompously proclaimed to be a
"Cathedral" and a *' Metropolitan Church." So the
2\mes, and so Dr. Blomfield, whose words now claim
attention. "Although they " (the Catholics) " know that
they have already far more than sufficient room in their
places of worship, they have put forth, under the auspices
of the Bishop of Rome himself, a proposal for buildinff a
'inagnijicent Cathedral to St. Peter J* Again, " having
seen tne extraordinary document, which has recently been
promulgated by the Bishop of Rome, calling upon all the
faithful to subscribe to the erection of a Popish Cathedral
in London, to be governed by the Ordinary of Londo^i,
Sis Eminence Cardinal Wiseman, ^(?." Kow, we defy
any one to discover, in any one document that has
appeared, an intimation that the projected Church was
meant to be a Cathedral. Dr. B. speaks as though the
Pope had so described it ; and, moreover, his words would
lead any one to imagine, that the phrase " to be governed,
&c.," occurred in some papal document. Yet, nothing
of this is true. Neither the Pope nor any other Roman

1851. J The Italian Church. 237

authority, nor the Archbishop, nor any English autho-
rized person, has ever expressed an intention of making
the Italian Church a cathedral ; nor has any appeal been
made to the public, here or abroad, in its favour, under
this name. The whole is a fiction. And yet drop it, and
more than half of Dr. Biomfield's point is lost. For
surely his contrast between the Cathedral to be dedicated
to St. Peter, and the Cathedral already existing in
London, dedicated to St. Paul, becomes flat, when the
first is discovered to be no Cathedral at all, but only an
ordinary Church. Nor can there be any great act of
aggression, or wonderful stretch of papal power, in approv-
ing of the building of a new Catholic Church, and recom-
mending it to the charity of Catholic Italy.

But the speech just quoted, contains another assertion
totally contrary to fact. ** They know that they have
already far more than sufficient room in their places of
worship.*' Siinplv this is not true. There is not nearly
room enoug^h for Catholics, as we have ascertained on the
best authority, in their present London Churches ; every
new accommodation that is afibrded is immediately occu-
pied. And even if it were otherwise, we have a right to
calculate upon accession of numbers ; for the Catholic is
a growing body. Does any one pretend that the new
Protestant churches, daily built, are at once filled?
Then according to this reasoning, why build them ? But
we repeat the assertion is incorrect, and ungrounded.

Thus much of the Italian Church. It was projected in
1847, in England, approved in Rome in the same year.
These few simple facts have been transmuted into the
following marvellous tale. *' The Pope, in 1851, decreed
the erection in London, of a magnificent Cathedral to St.
Peter, as the first step in the sequel to his aggression
against the Queen !"

II. And this lie, or "Mumpsimus,** or Protestant
inchoate " tradition,'^ has sufficed to draw several thou-
sands of pounds, out of that most capacious of all
depots for religious mares' nests — John Bull's pocket.
And how ? The sagacious public is told, that the Pope
intends building for himself a Church in London ; so it
must give him tit for tat, and build one for itself in Rome.
This public, now, for the first time, hears a lamentable
tale. As Peter the Hermit, came from the East, to har-
row the chivalrous hearts and pious souls of the Catholic

238 The Moralities of Legislation— [Sept

West, by describinpf the cruelties and extortions to which
pilgrims, visiting the holy sepulchre, were subjected, by
Saracen misrule, and a crusade ensued, in which men
gave their blood as well as their money ; so now do many
tongues and many pens proclaim, how wrongfully, how
harshly, how brutally English Protestants are treated, and
have been for some twenty years, by the Pope of Rome.
These pilgrims of the Colosseum and the Apollo Belvi-
dere, have been condemned for years, to their hard lot ;
and they have borne it with most edifying serenity. Every
body has known it ; thousands upon thousands have carried
the intolerable burthen, uncomplaining. Rectors, deans,
bishops, one archbishop at least of the Establishment, have
bent their necks to the galling yoke, unrepining. Officers,
military and naval, baronets, peers, and royal princesset ,
have again and again submitted to the cruel treatment
unreluctant. And what was this tyranny, this abasement,
this barbarity, to which they have so meekly submitted ?
All England now hears it with horror and dismay. " The
Pope,'' exclaims the Times, " condemns our countrymen,
to the performance of Divine service in a granary, without
the gates!'' **A common granary without the walls,"
exclaims Lord Harrowby : ** a granary at Rome,'*
echoes Dr. Blomfield. A *^ granary" thus becomes the
new cry : in that word is concentrated all the hideousness
of the Protestant position in Rome. What a picture does
it not open to the imagination ! *' The Pope condemns "
{condemns mind !) " our countrymen to the performance
of Divine service in a granary ;" that is, imagine to your-
self a huge magazine, without glass windows, open to
the tiles, with a brick floor, beams covered with cobwebs,
begrimed walls; with here a mouse, and there a rat, peer-
ing from nooks and cannies ; at one end the upheaped grain
with great hanging sieves, shovels, and other cereal im-
plements, perhaps the " mystica vannus lacchi ;" at the
other, our poor countrymen and women ** condenined "
by the cruel Pope there to say their prayers. Such is the
idea of worshipping in a granary ^ suggested to one who
has seen abroad, any of those useful receptacles of bread-
stuffs.

Now, gentle reader, let not your imagination thus ran
riot. The place in which our Protestant brethren are
*^ condemned, to pray" is well glazed and ceiled, and has its
walls in neatest trim. It has, more Anglicano, a warm

185L] The Italian Church. 239

carpet on the floor, and a stove to add to its warmth. It
is seated, we believe, with chairs throughout ; and is pro-
vided with pulpit, desk, and table, as seemly as in an
English parish church. Is this what the public would
understand by a *^ granary V^ But the building, of which
it forms a floor, is a granary. True: and there are few
palaces in Rome and m other great cities of Italy or Spain,
of which the ground floor is not a granary, or a store-house
of some sort. Yet the nobleman, who dwells above, is
not, therefore, said to live in a ** granary.*' And even if
the very room was a granary, it has ceased to be so, after
its form, furniture, appearance, and purpose have been
changed. It is clearly only ad captandum that the name
is here apphed ; it is to make a case of hardship, and
nothing else. It is one more instance of the honesty, jus-
tice, and morality, of the entire cause.

We may add, also, that if the EngHsh place of worship
has anything to do with a granary, it is the fault of those
who made the first arrangement. They found the room
which they selected, or accepted, the most convenient ;
but nothing compelled them to prefer the now obnoxious
granary. There were other buildings near, villas, for
instance, that could have been procured. But at that time
the objection was not felt, and we are much mistaken if even
Mr. Burgess, now so zealous in the anti-granary cry, did
not express himself thankful for the establishment of a re-
^lar place of worship *' without the walls. '* And now for a
word on this grievance. Does the reader imagine the walls
of Rome to be surrounded by a moat, with glacis and
counsterscarp, repelling every habitation to cannon-shot dis-
tance frcftn their bristling front? No such thing. The travel-
ler, who visits Rome from the north, after passing through a
mile of villas and other buildings, enters by the Flaminian
gate, and finds himself at once in the most beautiful square
of the city. Large hotels, on either side, announce to him at
once that he is in the strangers' quarter. From it radiate
three streets, in which, with their neighbouring squares,
are almost all the lodging houses for our oppressed coun-
trymen. Now scarcely one hundred yards from that gate,
nearly opposite the entrance of the once beautiful Villa
Borghese, stands this dreaded granary. It is truly with-
out the walls of Rome ; but was it placed there either by
an act of oppression, or as a dishonour ? Let those answer
who remember its beginnings, and looked then upon the

240 The Moralities of Legislation — [Sept

arrangement as a great boon, and what, perhaps, is more
to the pnrpose, as a comfort.

The English used originally to meet for worship in any
large room that could be secured, in some one's lodgings,
for this purpose. .We believe some time it was in the
Palazzo Valdambrini. This shifting church became at
length more settled, in the way thus described by Mr.
Burgess. *' It would, however, have required a very
vigorous execution of the law, to prevent a foreigner, ' who
had already his own hired house,' *' (he alludes to the
motto of his book, Acts, xxviii. 30,) "from inviting his
countrymen to a private assembly, and under this fonn
(it must be confessed a pretext) divine service was celebrat-
ed in a commodious room, in the vicola degli Avignonesi,
situated near the ancient circus of Flora.*'* In spite of
the classical recollections of the large room in a steep and
narrow street, there is no doubt that the transfer of its
duties to a permanent, ample, and properly arranged loca-
lity, just outside the gate, was hailed by all Engush Pro-
testants, at the time, as a most decided improvement of
f position ; nor till now have any complaints been heard.
jet us, therefore, examine the grounds which have been
alleged, for an application from our government to that of
Rome. For as these have been used against us, we have
a right to discuss them, apart from any more diplomatic
reasons which do not appertain to our sphere.

1. The main ground on which the new claim is made, is
one of reciprocity. The Pope, it is urged, has put forward
new pretensions to a Cathedral in London, therefore let us
have a Church in Rome. We have shown this reasoning
to be founded on untruth. The Holy See has not*brdered,
or directed, either a Cathedral or a common Church to
be built in London ; it has only re-approved of a plan pro-
posed to it in 1847, and then first approved by it, for a
foreign Church in the metropolis.

Lord Harrowby thus urges the argument : *' Under
existing circumstances, when the Church ^ of Rome tf
making large claims on the tolerance of this country,...
perhaps the opportunity is not ill-chosen to apply again to

* " Lectures on the insufficiency of unrevealed religion^ and on
the succeediDg influence of Cliristianitj, delivered at the English «
chapt-r* (f rauary ?) *• at Rome, in 1830, and 1831."— p. 11.

1851.] Thi Ttalian Churcli. 241

the court of Rome/* Again: '^ The question is... whe-
ther wey ds Protestants, are to enjoy the same liberty at
Rome, as the Roman Catholics, native and foreigners^
enjoy here ?'^ The spiritual Peer takes the same view
as the temporal ; that is, the rehgious view. Both say :
Catholics are allowed, and claim to build Churches in
London, therefore Protestants should do the same in
Home. This might do very well if we claimed, or did, this
as Catholics, and not as subjects, on the same ground as
Methodists, or Mormons, or Jumpers, or Unitarians.
The Catholic subjects of the British Empire do, and claim,
neither more nor less than is granted to all their fellow-
subjects ; aye, than is granted to all foreigners, to Greeks,
and to Mohommedans even, and to Hindoos and Parsees,
and, for aught we know, to the worshippers of Murabo
Jumbo. Is this the position of Lord Harrowby and those
whom he and Dr. B. design as '|we?'' The argument
should stand thus: ** Catholic subjects of Queen Victoria
claim, as such, the right of enjoying, in their own coun^
try, that liberty of worship which belongs to them ; and
therefore a pari, Protestant subjects of the same Sovereign
claim as such, a similar right, in a foreign country/*
Will Lord Harrowby, whom we have always considered a
sensible man, insist that there is here the slightest parity
of reasoning? Are we British Catholics temporal sub-
jects of the Pope, who *' are making large claims,'* by
asking to build a Church within the dominions of the
Queen, so to warrant the temporal subjects of her Majesty
to make similar demands on the Pope ? Or are not
both sides equally the subjects of one Sovereign, and
making the most opposite claims — we, the Catholics, (if
ours can be called a claim,) in our own country ; they, the
Protestants, in another ? In our country we have rights ;
does this, by reciprocity, create them for them in
another ?

Let us then amend Lord Harrowby 's plea, thus : " The
question is, whether we, as Protestants, are to enjoy the
same liberty at Rome, which Roman Catholics, as sub-
jects, enjoy here, that is, in their own country.^ This is
a complete non sequitur. We repeat again, this is not a
question of religious, but of civil claims ; the.re is not any
exclusive right demanded by Catholics, but only that
which they share with every other form of religion. Were

VOL. XXXL-No. LXI. 16

1

242 The Moralities of Leghlation — JSepL

there a body of Protestants, subjects of the Pope, in exist-
ence and recognized by him, who asked for liberty of wor-
ship denied to them, a parity might be, so far, produced
between their chiims in Rome and ours in England. But
a man must be blind to see such a parity, and call on the
British Government to act upon it, where the claimants in
one case are subjects and in the other not ; where one ride
only exercises an admitted and legally established right,
and the other cannot pretend to any.

But let us further examine who are the " we," so reso-
lutely and confidently put forward, as having equal rights
in Rome with what Catholics have in England. We will
not understand by that plural pronoun, the nation, the
mighty empire, which sends its fleets to overawe distant
coasts, and waves its Hag over the coral reefs of the Pacific
as easily as over the chalk-cliffs of England. Although of
1 ite years its expeditions of terror are supposed to nave
reversed, in their purpose, the old Roman prmciple,

** Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos ;"

Still, we cannot bring ourselves to believe, that it was a
right of might that was claimed, or that any but a moral
and equitable ground of appeal was intended, by those
members of the Lords' House, when they suggested the
propriety of government interference. Dr. Blomfield
speaks of *' our countrymen ;'' Lord Harrowby divides the
malcontents into two bodies — the Protestant public in
general, and the residents in Rome. The first grievance,
therefore, is on the part of English inhabitants. It may
be well just to mention, that for half the year, the actual
English Protestant inhabitants of Rome do not amount to
twenty. This year, the entire number of English, in the
city and neighbouring places of summer resort, is about
seventy, of whom at least twenty are Catholics.* But
during the summer, when hardly any EngUsh remain in
the city, the clergyman is generally absent, and the gra-
nary is closed. Moreover, without any evil speaking, we
may truly say, that the class of residents, mostly artists.

* Of course this docs not include the inmates of ecclesiastical
communities, as the English, Irish, Scotch, and Propaganda col-
legos the Irish Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians, &c.

185 1. J The Italian Church. 243

some Scotch presbyterians, are not very likely to havd
made much comphiint on church subjects. Indeed, on
enquiry in the best quarter that we could have access to,
we are assured no complaint has been made."'^ Lord
Harrowby, therefore, would have done well to have stated
positively, if he could, in what form the wishes, of the
£nglish residents, for a church has been made known.

It is evidently for the casual and ever-chanfyiug visitors
of the Eternal City that this reciprocity is demanded.
The Irish and English Catholics form an integral portion
of the population of this empire. They have their property
or their professions in it ; they hold their stake in its pros-
perity and peace ; they contribute their fair and full share
to its taxes and burthens ; they make up a larger portion
of its army than relative numbers would suggest, taking
the whole of its inhabitants. They are to be found in
every occupation of life, and they discharge their social
and public duties with honour. They are a numerous
class ; in Ireland several millions ; in England they are
many, and gaining ground. Even the foreigners, for
whom a church was to be provided, are far more numerous
than the richest season in Rome can ever count ; but what
is chiefly to our purpose, they are residents. In 1849, the
number of English who visited Rome in the whole year was
676; in 1850, it rose to about 1100; from January to
August of this year there were about 820 English, at
various times in Rome.f Of course, the entire number
was never there at once. But having made every enquiry
into the number of Italians in London, we have been
assured that it amounts to nearly, if not quite, five thou-
sand. Of these a certain number consist of mere itine-
rants ; but there is a large class of industrious residents,
many of whom employ many hands, generally of their own

* As far as we can learn, the only move that lias been made in
Rome, has consisted of a plan to move the chapel from wiihout the
gate to a room in the Palazzo Lepri, in Via Condotti, as being more
central. A person of the name of Sertori, tlie factotum of the
chapel, conducted the negotiation ; which was brought to a close,
not by the Government, but by Spillmau the confectioner, who, wo
suppose, outbid the churchwarden.

t We liave received these statements through the kindness of a
friend, who procured them from genuine sources.

1^.

244 Tlie Moralilles of Legislation — [Sept

country. And if we add foreigners of other nations, resi-
ding near and in the city, we may safely encrease the
number to seven or ei^hi thousand. These foreigners have
been, in many instances, for years established here, carry
on lucrative trades, and pay their share of imposts to the
State, and to local demands. They have, indeed, become
almost incorporated with the inhabitants ; and their next
generation, in many cases, will only be distinguished from
them by the Italian names they bear.

Will it be said, that whatever claims these two classes
inherit, or have acquired in the country where they live
and have placed or hold their all, are just as much held by
the holiday people who make Rome their watering place
for a few months, enrich, perhaps, innkeepers, horse-
jobbers, and artists, but have no stake there, pay not a tax
or a rate, and in no one way support the burthens of the
State? Surely there is a wide dinerence between the two;
yet perfect equality is claimed !

3. Dr. Blomfield does, in fact, claim perfect equality.
*' Surely,'' he says, ** they cannot blame us, if we are
seeking to accomplish a similar object.'' The object to
which a similar one is to be sought to be accomplished is a
cathedral in London. Is his Lordship serious? Does he
mean to say, that an Anglican cathedral is to be, or ought
to be, built, and then followed by parish churches, &c., in
Rome ? But, truly, does any one gravely entertain this
principle, — that the English birds of passage who visit
Rome, are entitled to the full range of religious action^
which the law, and the very groundwork of Protestantism
secure to Catholics in this country; and that merely
because the latter possess it ? We cannot believe it.

In all that we have written, we have not pretended to
deal with the abstract question of right to toleration. That
is a distinct matter. We have only taken the argument as
we are mixed up with it, as our conduct here is made the
basis of a claim elsewhere, and we are, in a manner, sought
to be held responsible for what may be decided there.
We have shown, that in addition to the falsehood of the
basis of the entire argument, the reasoning against us will
be : " Because Rome refuses to strangers a certain liberty,
England should refuse the same to some of its subjects,
because they profess the same religion with Rome.'* But
we may go higher in the argument, without trenching on
the abstract question of toleration. We do say, therefore.

1851.] Tlie Italian Church. 245

that we see peculiar reasons why, at this moment certainly,
such a demand as the two Lords of Parliament, so often
alluded to, wish our Government to make, should be
refused.

First, it does not follow that reciprocity of principle must
exist in different nations. England does not expect,
though it may wish it, that free-trade will prevail in every
other country. But at any rate, it acts with other nations,
not according to its own principles and wishes, but accord-
ing to the laws that exist in those countries. For a
iiritish merchant to act in Spain on the English free-trade

frinciple, would be simply smuggling, and a gross offence.
)oe8 the British Government call upon all other Govern-
ments to act according to our laws and not according to
their own ? or if they wish them to conform their conduct to
our principles, is not the first natural step to invite them to
modify their principles, and adopt ours ? It would be not
only absurd but insulting, to claim from any power the
violation of its own laws.

England has long established free-trade in religion as in
everything else. Universal toleration is the religious
equivalent to our great commercial principle. Let it not,
however, be forgotten how it has been obtained. For cen-
turies the religious Establishment of the country was * as
exclusive, as intolerant, as persecuting as any imaginable
Church could be. Only as its power gave way before the
encreasing strength of seceders from it, did it reluctantly
relax its gripe ; and toleration is not a principle of that
body to which Br. Blomfield belongs, nor a boon to which
it was a consentient party, but a hard-earned spoil wrested
from the enemy. Catholics came in for their share, when
their exclusion was deemed dangerous. Toleration is the
consequence of dissent and of plurality of religions. It is,
therefore, both natural and necessary in this Empire.

But other countries, in which there has not been the
cause, the consequence is not as necessarily found : where
there has been no one to tolerate, toleration would not be
either a claim or a concession. It is not therefore recognised
hy law. So it is in Spain, in Naples, in Rome. Of such
States, the conduct must be regulated by the law. To ask
a Government to act contrary to its laws, as we observed
above, is merely to insult it. Your negociations must
begin by asking it to re-consider its laws, and see if they
can be modified. Ask these States to admit the principle

246 Tlie Moralities of Leyidation — [Sept.

of universal toleration; and then, if they agree, proceed
to act on the new admissions. It will be for each Govern-
ment to consider, how far the wishes of mere strangers, who
desire to amuse themselves in its dominions for a few
months, may be sufficient ground for altering a principle,
which at least holds good in all the interests of its own
sul)jects. It may admit certain concessions, or partial
toleration; it may grant more or less; but we repeat,
there is no right to ask for conduct adverse to principle
and law.

We have a recent illustration of this maxim. England,
as yet, refuses civil liberty to the Jews. No one st;inds
forward as their advocate, more warmly than the First
Ijord of the Treasury. But when, lately, the newly-
elected member for Gravesend endeavoured to act con-
trary to the law, and take his seat in the House, Lord
John Russell was the first to thwart this attempt. It was
on the principle, that the law, indeed, ought to be changed,
but so long as it exists, conduct at variance with it must
not be permitted.

We say, therefore, that so long as the law stands as it
now does in those different states, you have no right to
claim a toleration which it does not grant. And to ask
for the erection of a new Protestant Church in Rome,
while this is forbidden by the law, is, of course, to court a
refusal. Lord HaiTowby, indeed, thinks it important to
test the sincerity of the Court of Rome on this head.
Now, how has Rome given grounds for the application of
this test ? It is as well known as possible, that the Catholic
religion is the only one of the Pontifical States. And has
the Pope asked of England to gnant toleration to his
spiritual children ? Certainly not : they have fought their
own battle of centuries to obtain it, and they knew how to
bear ages of defeat and tyranny. Then what pretensions,
or assumptions, or claims of the Pope have to be tested ?
Again we repeat, the law of Rome does not admit univer-
sal toleration, any more than free-trade. It gives every
facility for freedom of worship ; but it does not put other
religions on a level with the Catholic.

Then whjit is to be done? If our government, in its
wisdom, thinks it proper to apply to the Pope — ^not to
break his existing laws — but to change them, it will at
least begin at the right end. Now, the Pope, or any other
sovereign, similarly circumstanced, may reason on this

1851.] Tlie Italian Church. 247

principle ; that, in making or changing laws, it is his duty
to consult the Vjenefit of his subjects, and not the opinions
or wishes of strangers. He would reflect whether having
no Protestant subjects he should legislate for Protestants,
(any more than an inland State should make naval laws ;)
and whether it would be truly a blessing and an increase
of peace, to open the door to the preaching of every variety
of new doctrine, where there had, till now, been only one.
They who consider all Catholics immersed in religious
darkness, will think so : but as the Pope, or a Catholic
prince, has here to reason, he will probably come to an
opposite conclusion. He might please to permit modifica-
tions, to meet the greater intercourse between nations, and
a growing disposition in strangers to dismiss old pre-
judices ; but we are sure that no reasoning, on the basis
of ^ the moral good of subjects, starting from a Catholic
principle, could lead to the conclusion, that the floodgates
of toleration should be so thrown open, as to allow a
colluvies of sects to inundate the land. Yet this would be
the only mode of acting on a principle of reciprocity.

For, secondly, let it be observed, that full toleration, as
now asked, must go thus far. Let us not shrink from the
plain truth. The Catholic Church never has recognised,
and never can recognise the Establishment of this country,
as more than a sect of Protestantism. She knows nothing
of its legal Bishops, and that not since last year, but for
the last three centuries. The Holy See could grant no dis-
tinct or specific permission to the ** Church of England '* to
have a Church. This would be a recognition of its eccle-
siastical existence. A Protestant Chapel is permitted ;
but no one enquires whether ordained clergymen or circuit-
preachers officiate there. But if government treats for a
Church, such as Dr. Blomfield describes, the Holy See
cannot, we conceive, entertain the proposal. If it allow
one body to have its public chapel, it will have to contem-
plate the necessity of admitting all. We have it on high
authority, that Dr. Cumming has collected money for
some chapel in Rome. Is it the same as Dr. Blomfield
proposes ? Is the Anglican dignitary embarked in the same
boat with the Presbyterian, anti-prelatic zealot? Will
each be represented in the same temple ; or will they sink
their differences, upon such minor points as Baptismal
Regeneration, imposition of episcopal hands, and apostoli-
cal succession ; or^ finally^ are two chapels to be asked

218 TJie MoraUiks of Legislation — ' [Sept.

for, tlio Episcopal, and the Presbyterian ? We know
further, that some coxcomb or other has written to some
authority in Rome, to enquire how far a mission, composed
of godly ministers of various denominations, would be
admitted ? Yet, of all these conflicting sects, and many
more, must that toleration be capacious, which is based oa
the principle of reciprocity — the gi'ound assumed by our
lay, and ecclesiastical, lords. If any one, calling himself a
Churchman, really thinks the Pope should bo urged to
the admission of this Babel into his States, we can only
explain his idiosyncracy, by the fable of the outwitted
animal, which having left its own caudine appendage in
a trap, wished all of its tribe to entail on themselves tho
same misfortune.

Thirdly. We were at first too much amused by the
boldness of the following pjissages in Dr. Blomfield's
speech, to notice the key which followed them, to the
present movement.

" But our countrymen are accustomed to pay their devotion ia
buildiugs, where the external and internal decorations are propor-
tional to the important sacred objects to which they are applied.
They are, therefore, not content to worship, except in a building
which has something like the appearance of a temple."

'* Surely they cannot blame us, if we are seeking to acoomplitfh
a similar object in Rome. As to the difficulties thrown in the way
of Englishmen, desirous of worshipping God at Rome, ia that
splendour which suits at once their ritual and their habits, &o.*'

Shonld poor Mr. Bennett, on the continent, have read
this passage, will he not have been amazed ? Dr. Blomfield
descanting on *' that splendour which suits the Angli-
can ritual and mind ;" and complaining of the want of
*' internal decoration '* in the Anglo-Roman chapel, as a
just ground for government applying to the Pope for a
Church! His Lordship must, indeed, have been badly
off for an argument, when he stooped to pick this up. But
after these words, the noble speaker proceeds to state, that
a large sum of money has been collected in a few weeks,
upon no grounds, but those of attachment and devotion to
the Anglican Establishment, towards building this highly*-
decorated Church.

We cannot caiTy our credulity so far, even under such
an authority, as to believe, that pure love for that institu-
tion elicited this ready alms. Are we to believe, that not a

lash] Tlie Italian Church. 249

thouffht of being avenged ever crossed a fiver's mind, not
a feeling of antipathy towards the Pontiff, nor a desire to
see him and his annoyed, not one lurking hope that this
would be a centre of proselytism among the native Catho-
lics ? ^ Does Dr. B. himself believe that, had it been
described how the Anglicans at Carlscrona, in Sweden,
had been prevented (though allowed elsewhere since 1741,)
from building a suitable Church, and had therefore wor-
shipped in an extramural granary; and that had he
therefore called on all good Anglicans to join in procur-
ing them a splendid Church, there would have been a
large suni immediately subscribed, out of pure affection for
the Anglican establishment? Yet the motive would have
equally existed here. But no ; he well knows, for he is
no dull mind, that it was not love for Anglicanism, but
hatred to Rome, that acted as a charm in drawing forth
the purses of Dissenters, as well as Anglicans, in favour
of this religious speculation. '* A Church Protestant at
Rome !'* This was the watchword, the talisman that
acted so magically.

Then let things be plainly spoken at once, and let the truth
come out It is not to gratify the devotion of Protestants,
but to corrupt the faith of Catholics, that the sclieuie has
been devisea. It is an effort to attract, beguile, cozen,
and pervert the children of the faith, at their own hearth,
that is about to be made. It is the wish to-multiply the
Achillis, the Cioccis, the Mappeis, and to swell the black
hst of apostacy, which is father to this thought, of having
splendour of service, and rich decoration of place, in one
who at home has been their openest foe. And Tuscany
has afforded abundant proof, that religious proselytism is
but the cloak to political intrigue, and that fidelity to the
throne soon follows, in destruction, that due to God.

We cannot, for a moment, conceive that the Pontifical
government will look upon the proposal, if made, in any
other light than this: as a mere attempt to spread Pro-
testantism among its Catholic subjects, not as a step to
increase the religious comfort of British worshippers.

Fourthly. Let us now put a case. Dr. Biomfield is
legal holder of much property in the neighbourhood of
London, let out on building leases. Let us suppose (and
this is not an imaginary case,) that applicjition were made
to him, to lease a plot of ground for building thereon a
Catholic Church. We put it to his conscience, would

250 ni£ Moralities of Legidation— [Sept

he ffnmt it ? We are much mistaken if such application
was not made, near Bays water, and refused. We know
of certain instances where such a lease, for such a pur-
pose, has been refused by Anglican authorities. Nay,
more, we have lately known a case (only prudence obliges
us to suppress the name at present,) where public Com-
missioners, actin<x by virtue of an Act of Parliament, and
consequently in the name of the nation, have reftised a site,
upon public ground, on sale, for building a Catholic Church,
expressly and avowedly because such was its destination.
Wow, what was the reasoning of his Lordship, or these
Commissioners ? Why, doubtless, that they considered
the Catholic religion unscriptural, false, and corrupt; that
they could not concur in propagating, or more firmlj
establishing it ; and that, on the contrary, they must
employ the authority committed to them, to prevent its
spread, and impede the building of any place calculated to
procure it.

Surely the Pope is bound to act according to his convic-
tions as much as Dr. Blomfield, or public Commissioners.
He has as much right to say, that, holding Anglicanism
to be a heresy, he is not to be expected to concur in its
propagation. At any rate, if an Anglican dignitary would
not think himself open to blame, if he prevented Catholics
from building a Church where he had power, he ou^ht not
to charge the Head of the Church with greater mtoler-
ance than his own, if he acts similarly towards foreiga
Protestants.

If Dr. Blomfield's consent were necessary before Catho-
lics could build a Church anywhere in London, how many
would they be allowed to build ?

Fifthly. We must now call attention to an expression
of Lord Harrowby^s, which indeed amazed us. " Under
existing circumstances, when the Church of Rome is
making large claims on the tolerance of this country,*'
his Lordship thinks it most becoming that Government
should make demands on Rome. Now, what " large
claims'* had the Church of Rome just made ? We must
suppose, the claim to establish our Hierarchy. Now,
when you set up claim for claim, it is generally under-
stood, that one conceded claim entitles to a demand for
another in compensation. Lord Harrowby*s argument
seems to be grounded on this form of reasoning. ** The
proper time for me to m::ike a demand from you, is just *

1851.] The Italian Church. 25 1

after you have made one on me, and I have most indig-
nantly refused it/' His Lordship's party believed that
they had not only rejected, but contemptuously repulsed,
the Papal overture ; they had declared all that it proposed
null and void, and they had rendered those whom it
regarded liable to heavy penalties. Whatever '* large
claims'' had been made, they were now crushed and
trampled underfoot by the full weight of legislative avenge-
ment. It is with the record, in hand, of this act of tri-
umph, with a declaration of defiance and hostility waved
before the occupier of the Papal throne, with the boast on
the lips, that his acts were stultified and nullified by the
omnipotence of the British Legislature, perhaps with an
informer's petition to sue one of his Bishops mysteriously
half-shown, that Government has to approach and address
the holy Father, and make on him a claim for favour and
extended privilege. And this a British Peer, and conse-
quently an honourable man, considers a becoming course.
He thinks it is no more than making our claim oppor-
tunely, because the Pope has just advanced his! To
make the parallel a finished work, his Holiness must treat
the Protestant's claim as they have treated his.

But if there be really a desire to test the sincerity of
Catholic principles on the subject of toleration, why go to
make the experiment in a country like Italy, where the
elements for trial are positively wanting ? Why not go to
countries professedly Catholic, as much as England is Pro-
testant, but with a certain number of Protestant inhabi-
tants ? Look at Belgium for instance, a thoroughly
Catholic State, but containing a small Protestant popula-
tion. Is there not complete — not toleration, but equality,
and an equality impartially carried out ? But what is
more, there is no taunting, jibing, calumniating, syste-
matically carried on by the strong against the weak ; no
attempt to excite the passion of the mob against Protes-
tants. It is the same in France, or in Bavaria ; in fine,
wherever there are Protestant subjects in a Catholic state.
The toleration shown to these is far greater, completer,
and sincerer, than we receive from a Protestant ascendancy.
Why not go, we repeat, to these countries where the case
is parallel with England, for criterions of Catholic tolera-
tion, instead of to purely Catholic sovereignties, where the
principle cannot have been applied ?

Does any one doubt the sagacity of Dr. Blomfield or

252 The Moralities of Legislation — [Sept.

Lord Ilarrowby , to see and know this ? Do they require
the example of Belgium to be pointed out to them ?
Surely not: but it would not answer their purpose. It
certainly would not answer the purpose of their more
fanatical followers, who try now again to rouse the passions
of the people, to back their diplomatic application ; those,
we mean, who have chalked the walls of London in every
direction with this inscription, " Demand a church in
Rome, or burn down all the mass-houses in England."

Here is a specimen of the zeal, which springs up from
attachment to the " Church of England, ^ as it is called ;
of the i)ure, unmixed, and holy fire, which that unhappy
institution keeps alive upon its altars, and mistakes for
charity. It is the fanaticism of party to which it appeals,
and not a zeal for God's House. It is upon a few linger-
ing passions, no longer of the people, but of a class, that
it leans, and to the prejudices and bigotry of the still igno-
rant that it looks. The people knew nothing, and cared
little, for the state of the English Chapel at Rome — ^no
more than they troubled themselves about one at Naples
or Leghorn. It was determined to make a cry of the sub-
ject; and, whoever, directly or indirectly, procured the
defilement of London's walls, when the city was full of Catho-
lic strauffers, with such an unchristian, unsocial, and almost
treasonable inscription, (for it urges to universal riot and
probable bloodshed,) must have belonged to the more edu-
cated classes. Such are the partizans of the new church in
Rome ; and we trust the noble and generous words in
which the English people are thus invited to demand it,
will reach the ears of the Sovereigii PontiflF; and show him,
on what Christian terms the petition is advanced. It is
not usual in the successors of the Apostles to yield to
intimidation.

But we should like to know what view would be taken
of similar conduct in Rome. Suppose some noble Lord
were to announce, in his place, that Rome was inscribed
all over, not perhaps in chalk, but in more appropriate
charcoal,

(" Ilia quidera creta, sed ot hsec carbone notasti,")

with coarse invitations to the Roman people, Trasteveriui
included, to proceed at once to the burning down of the

granary without the walls, as being '* a " fwe must

suppress the epithet here as we have above) '^aereticol

1851.] Vie Italian Church. 253

preaching shop;" let another Ri^ht Rev. Lord arise and
add, that evidently these inscriptions had been written by
persons of a better class, and certainly with the conniv-
ance of the police :"* would not that be considered suffi-
cient ground for appealing to the ready energies of the
Secretary for Foreign attairs ? And would not Mr. Petre,
or Mr. Freeborn, or Mr. any one else at hand, be forth-
with instructed, to apply for the immediate cessation of
such insulting and provocative annoyance of Her Majesty's
subjects ?

But sixthly y we must not overlook another consideration,
which a friend has suggested to us. Suppose a conven-
ticle or chapel were set up in England, wherein, on prin-
ciple, the Sovereign was represented as one marked by
God for vengeance, and whom it was everybody's duty to
pluck down from the throne, and to annihilate utterly ;
would it be thought very hard, that such a religion should
not be encouraged to show itself more publicly, and obtain
currency among the people ? Now English protestantism,
even in its established form, with some exceptions perhaps,
considers it its duty to denounce the ** Sovereign of the
States of the Church,'' as Antichrist, as the man of sin,
as one whom God will destroy with the breath of his
. mouth. It will be said that all this applies only to his
religious or ecclesiastical character, not to his civil or
temporary capacity. But it does so happen, that de
Jacto^ .at least, the two characters are united in one man,
and whatever injury he suffers in one, is perfectly com-
municated to the other. No sovereign could admit of
such distinctions in treason. It may be well enough to
confine to a chapel without, the gates, the ravings of
fanatics, who have actually there preached against the
Fope, as being all that we have described. But really
to expect, that he will graciously sanction the public
erection of a highly-adorned chapel, externally as well
as internally, in the middle of his metropolis, that so
his subjects may be better invited and allured to enter.

* The inscriptions, which, for nearly a year, have bedaubed the
▼all of Her Majesty's garden, towards Grosvenor place, are so
carefally and largely written, that a person in the police has de-
clared, it would have been impossible to paint them there, without
the conniyance, at least, of the policeman on duty.

254 The Moralities of Legislation — [Sept.

and hear him described, and that on principle, as au
usnrper of God's place, and a power which all good
christians ought to pull down, is reckoning, if not too
much on the meekness of the Christian prelate, a grreat
deal too much on the sagacity and common sense of the
temporal Prince.

We have carefully refrained from theology in our re-
marks, and from any consideration of general principles
on toleration. We have dealt merely with the case before
us, as a striking illustration of the immorality of the late
l)enal legislation. We have endeavoured to show, how this
question of the new chapel in Rome, which has arisen as
an episode from it, and remains as a lighted smouldering
coal, kept to rekindle religious animosities next session, is
based upon a deliberate falsehood and fiction, about a
fancied papal Cathedral, about, by order, to be built in
London. And then we have exposed the fallacies by which
a ground of reciprocity is sought to be established, for
demanding a protestant chapel in Rome. J'his ground we
have shown to be nugfatory.

Immorality will necessarily result from abandonment of
principle: and inconsistency is generally such a dereliction.
When, to carry a measure, which gratifies either a party
feeling, or a personal passion, the maxims of a previous
life are contradicted, the aid of those who, on that very
subject have been professed antagonists, is sought, and
even secured by concessions beyond the the first dictates
of conscience, and old friends are discarded, deceived,
and betrayed ; it is impossilile that the legislation thence
resulting, should not bear the stain of its birth, and appear
before the world, an evidence of unsound ethics. How
the legislation of last session has carried us back, through
twenty years, to the days when brilliant wit and biting
sarcasm flashed from the pen of Moore! Languishing
now, under the kind patronage of one, whose share in the
late measure, every Catholic deplores, as a departure from
long-tried fidelity to a good cause, the bard little knows,
how truly he then prophesied of his friends, when he placed
Ireland, as a patient between Dr. Whig and Dr. Tory ;
and made the first a pupil to the second, in the art of
coercion. Thus the latter speaks:

** Coerce, Sir, coerce, •

You're a juvenile performer, but ouce you begin, *"

1851.] Tlie IlaUan Church. 253

Too can*t think how fast jou may train your Land in :
And [smUinff] who knows but old Tory may take to the shelf.
With the comfort that, while ho retires ou his pelf,
He's succeeded by one just as bad as himself?
Dr. Whig [looking flattered] — Why to ;tell you the truth, IVe a
'small matter here,

Which you helped me to make for my patient last year.

• m * m

Dr. Tory [emhracing him.] Oh, charming I — My dear Dr. Whig,

you're a treasure.
Next to torturing myself , to help you is a pleasure.

[Assisling Dr. Whig.]''

Another nobleman had declared, not long before the
meeting of Parliament, that he envied the state of religious
freedom in the United States : yet he was to be found in
the Government majorities in favour of the penal Bill.
Of a third, let Lord Monteagle speak.

«« Is our Church so safe, so popular, and so defensible, as to jus-
tify parliament in exposing it to new dangers and encreased obloquyl
This too, at a period when one of the Cabinet, the Earl Grey, has
repeated his adhesion to his former and extreme opinions, and has
exhibited an unexampled contrast between the renewed recommen-
dation to give the Roman Catholic prelates of Ireland seats in the
House of Lords, and the measure defended by the very same states-
man, which applies severe penalties to the episcopal functions exer-
cised by those Roman Catholic prelates for 300 years. If the
Johcmnisberg de Cabinet be the beverage for foreign statesmen, it
seems evident that the liqueur de confradic/ion is most popular in
Downing Street. Constautia, it must be confessed, has been in our
times wholly abandoned." p. 23.

It is quite impossible that such departures from principle
can publicly be made, without public morality suffering.
There can be no respect for legislation, especially of an
odious character, which ever^ one sees was proposed with
passion, supported by fanaticism, and carried without con-
viction.

On the other hand we can look back on the conduct of
Catholics, through all the late crisis, with unmingled satis-
faction, and even pride. When this number of our Review
appears, it will be just one year since the Letter Apostolic
was issued, (Sept. 29, 1850,) and we defy our adversaries
to point out one authorised departure from principles of
honour, justice, morality, or sound religion, in the line

256 Tlie Moralities of Leghlaiion — [Sept.

which we have followed, during this trying period. The
firmness and calm exhibited by the entire body are the
best vindication of their motives, and the surest confuta-
tion of all the violent and absurd charges made against
them. Had they quailed and shrunk, it might now be
argued, that they had been foiled and disappointed. Had
they divided into parties, it niight have been concluded,
that they had taken contradictory views on the measure,
from the beginning. Instead of either, never was neater
firmness, or greater unanimity exhibited. If the cmmour
of the recess produced so good an effect, the fury of the
session was calculated to confirm it. For the Government
took the surest way of binding Catholics together, by
attacking principalljr those whom they most naturally
revere. To have aimed the blow at the Bishops of the
Catholic Church, Ireland included, was the best plan for
rallying, round their pastors, their affectionate flocks. '* I
will strike the Shepherd,*' it was solemnly said of old,
" and the sheep of the flock shall be dispersed.'* This is
when God smites : but when feeble man takes up the sword
of persecution, it is the contrary. '^ Strike the Shepherd,
and the sheep of the flock will gather closer together.**

Since the above was written two remarkable documents
on our subject, have been published, by the Morning
Chronicle of Sept 19. They consist of an address to Lord
Palmerston froni the *' General Assembly of the Presby-
terian Church in Ireland,'* and his Lordship's reply.
They are as follows.

*• Unto the Right Hon. Viscount Palmerston, one of Her Majestj*s

principal Secretaries of State,
" The Memorial of the General Assemhlj of the Presbyterian

Church in Ireland,

" Humbly Showeth, — That jour memorialists are sincerely
thankful to Almighty God, the source of all power and blessing*
for the extensive and commanding influence which our most
gracious Sovereign possesses amon^jr the nations of the earth, and
for the exercise of that influence in procuring the relief of the
oppressed, and advancing the cause of liberty.

''That your memorialists have been grieved to observe that,
while the adherents of the Pope of Rome in these kingdoms hav«
the utmost freedom and liberty of conscience, and that, while their
Roman Catholic fellow-subjects lay claim to great liberality of
sentiment, and are guaranteed and secured in all the rights of

1851.] The Italian Church. 261

prirate jadgment and religious worship, that, in Roman Catliolic
countries, and especiallif in the Papal Stales, in Naples, and in Austria,
no real toUraiion is allowed; while heayj penal ties-^-such as impri-
sonment, confiscation of property, and banishment — are inflicted
for the alleged crime of reading God*s holy Word, attending prayer
meetings, venturing to call in question the errors of the Church of Rome,
or abjuring a faith which they believe to he false for one they have found
to he true.

*' That your memorialists have had their attention yery specially
directed to a recent yiolation of the great principles of liberty and
toleration, in the case of a Tuscan nobleman, Count Guiacciardini,
who, for the offences of seeking the icnowledge of God at the pure
fountain of His Word, and endeavouring to strengthen and develope
the principles of piety, by Christian fellowship and communion,
has been treated like a felon, thrown into a dungeon, and then
driven into banishment ; and deeply affected by this outrage on
reason and Christianity, your memorialists earnestly plead that
vou would interpose your influence with foreign Powers to secure
liberty of conscience throughout their dominions, aud to have the
satme rights granted to Christians, in Florence and elsewhere, that
are so largely enjoyed by Roman Catholics in this Protestant
empire.

** And your memorialists will ever pray.

" Signed in the name and on the behalf of the General Assembly
of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, at its annual meeting,
held in Belfast, the 12th day of July, 1851,

" John Coulter, D.D., Moderator.

" Thomas M. Reid, A.M., Senior Clerk.

" RoBBET Park, A.M., Junior Clerk."

(Reply.)

" Foreign-office, Aug. 20, 1851.

** Sir, — I am directed by Viscount Palmerston to acknowledge
the receipt of the petition of the General Assembly of the Presby-
terian Church in Ireland, transmitted by you, and requesting that
Uer Majesty*s Government would interpose their influence in order
to obtain liberty of conscience for Christians in Rome, Naples, and
other foreign countries.

"I am to say, that Ilor Majesty's Government are deeplpr
impressed with a conviction of the truth and justice of the princi-

Eles laid down in this* petition, and Her Majesty's Government
ave not omitted, aud will not omit, to avail themselves of every
proper opportunity of urging those principles on other Govern-
ments, as far as may be consistent with a due regard for inter-

VOL. XXXI.— No, LXI, 17

258 The Moralities of Legislation. [Sept

national independence, and vith any prospect of obtaining a useful
result.

** I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

" H. W. Addimgton.
**The Rev. Robert Park, A.M., Clerk of
General Assembly, Ballymoney."

From the Presbyterian Address, it is clear that the aim
of the new Anglo-Roman movement is, not the greater
comfort of British subjects, but the diffusion of protestant-
ism among Catholics in Italy. The answer which bears
the impress of the source whence it emanates, at least
admits a slight regard for the maxim, that any negociation
must beffin, by proposing the adoption of new principles —
those of Endand, m religion, and in all else, being assum-
ed to be right.

Her Majesty^s Government, and Lord Palmerston espe-
cially, well knows, that in Sweden, the position of Catho-
lics is quite as bad as that of protestants in Rome or
Naples. With the exception of a chapel at Stockholm,
no place of Catholic worship is allowed to be erected in the
country. No CathoUc is admissible to anjr employment
whatever. If any Swede becomes a Catholic, the penalty
(enforced a few years ago) is banishment, and, we believe,
confiscation. Will any one memorialise Lord Palmerston,
as the Presbyterians have done, and ask him to use the
influence of the British name, with this protestant State,
and obtain for the poor Catholics in it, liberty of con-
science, and fulness of toleration ? Much of the language
of the presby terian memorial could be adopted. But what
would be most interesting to know is, whether in naming
''Rome, Naples, and other countri.es y^ s^'Athe scenes (h
his diplomatic labours in favour of religious toleration, the
Rt. Hon., Secretary of State for foreign afiairs, meant to
include Sweden in his^xtensive generality : in other words,
whether he is as active in claiming that boon, where the
sufferers are Catholic, and the dommant power protestant,
as he has been where the tables are turned. If not, has it
been a matter of principle, or of party ? . ^

1851.] French Catholic Publications. 259

SUMMARY NOTICES OF FOREIGN CATHOLIC LITERATURE.

French Catholic FuhliccUiont.

We resume, in the following pages, our summary notices
of the current Catholic Literature of France, a portion of
which appeared in our April number. Owing to the long
arrear which had accumulated, and which we hope to wipe
off at intervals, these notices are still, of necessity, exceed-
ingly brief. Nevertheless, they are intended, in all cases,
to convey such a description of the general character, con-
tents, and merit, of each work, as may, at least, serve to
guide the selection of purchasers and students.

For more detailed accounts of many of the works here
noticed, we would refer our readers to the accurate and
learned Bibliographical Journal of the Abbes Des Billiers
and Duplessy, to which we ourselves owe many obHga-
tions.

We have thought it advisable to append to the series of
notices a catalogue of new books, which it was impossible
to describe in detail.

THEOLOGY, ASCETICISM, ESSAYS, LITURGY, &C.

(1.) — Drfense du Christianisme Historiquey par I'Abbe Chassat,
Professeur de Philosophie au seminaire de Bayeux, 2 vols.
12ma f. 7.15,. Sagnier and Bray.

Our readers may recollect a work published some time since, bj
M. Chas^aj, under the title of '< Le Christe et rEyangile." The
present publication is an enlarged and remodelled edition of that
excellent essay. It is a defence of the historical evidences of Chris-
tianitj, against the attacks of the German school of Philosophy.
The author has made the theories of the German Philosophy his
pecoliar study, and his success is sufficiently attested by his valu-
able work on Strauss. Tlie present treatise is divided into three
books ; the first exhibits the state of affairs in Germany with regard
to Religion and Philosophy during the eighteenth century ; the
geoond, the subsequent developments of the principles then origi-
nated ; the third is taken up with a refutation of the mythic
system. The author has succeeded in treating with clearness and
precision the vague doctrines he had to deal with.

k

260 French Catholic PubUcaiions. |.Sept

(2.) — Cerenioniel seloti le Bit Remain^ par J. Baldeschi, traduit de
1' Italian et complete par M. V Abbe Fausel, 1 voL 12mo, f.
3.50. Lccoffrc.

In the first edition of this work, the usages of the diocese of
Langres were mixed up with the pure Roman rite, a thing which
rendered the book yery unsafe as a guide. From the present
edition everj local peculiarity is banished, and the Roman ceremo-
nial is accurately copied. Large additions, founded chieflj on
recent decisions of the Congregation of rites, have been made to
Baldeschi 's original work. These are incorporated with the text,
but are distinguished from it by brackets. It is one of the most
perfect books in its department.

(3.) — ListiUUions LiturgiqueSy par Jean Fobnici, Chanoine; trtd-
uites et cnrichies de notes, par M. Boissonnet. 1 yoL 18mo.
f. 2.50. Mequignon.

Institutiones Liturgicw, &c., Demichelis.

This treatise was written at the request of Cardinal Tarla, to
serye as a class book in the Roman Seminary, where he established
a chair of sacred rites. The work is divided into four parts ; the
mass — the divine office — the sacraments — benedictions, &o. We
are at a loss to know what suggested the idea of translating sacb
a book into French. Demichelis*s edition gives the original text,
and is furnished with a number of very useful notes, some of them
containing recent decisions of importance.

(4.) — Dictionnaire de Theohgie, Dogmatiqm, lAturgique^ Canonique^ €i
Discipllnaire, par Bergieb, 4 vols. 4to. Migne.

Tlie value of Bergier*8 Theological Dictionary hat long beeii
gratefully recognized. This edition of it has been prepared by M,
I'Abbe Pierrotz, Professor of theology in the seminary of VerduL
He has added new articles on subjects omitted by Bergier, some of
which indeed have been made matter of controversy since his timp.
He has also pressed into service recent scientific discoreries^
relations of travels, and the fruits of hermacutical research. The
additions of M. Pierrot are marked by brackets. Some notes
are appended correcting opinions disapproved of by the Holy See.

(5.) — Repomes Courtes et Familieres aux Objectiones hs plus repanditei
c<yntre la Religion^ par M. PAbbe de Scgur, fourth edition, f.
0.35. Lecoifre.

If rapid sale be a nroof of merit in a book, this book possesaet it*
for no less than 25,000 copies were sold within four months. It ia
really a most useful book for circulation. Every chapter is headed
with a common saying constantly in the mouth of the scoffers of

1851.] French Catholic Publications. ' 261

religion, sach as the priests are minding their own trade, &c., and
the chapter contains a plain and concise answer to the objection.

(6.) — Perseverance ChreHenne^ ou Moyem d* Assurer les fruits de la
premiere Communion, par le Directeur de Catechismes de St. Siilpice.
1 voL 12mo, f. 2. Lecoffre.

(7.) — Cours dHnstruction Rdigieuse a Vmage des Catechismes de
Perseverance, par le Meme, 2 vols. l2mo., f. 4. Lecoffre.

The latter work is a sort of Christian Philosophy, destined for
the use of joung men receiving their education in the colleges, &c.
It is written in a style adapted to cultivated minds. It consists of
a clear exposition of the grounds of the Catholic faith and its prin-
cipal dogmas ; and the difficulties usually to be met with are fully
stated and well answered. The author promises similar works ou
morals and liturgy.

(8.) — Theohgie a Vusage des Gens du Monde, par M. Charles Sainte
Foi, 3 vols. 12mo. Pouielgue.

A great many works of this kind have been publislied in later
years. Their common object is to provide for those who have forgot-
ten the truths of religion which they learned in their childhood, and
whose present indifference proceeds chiefly from ignorance, a want
of information full and precise, concerning the dogmas of the Chris-
tian doctrine, and the grounds of Christian belief, conveyed in
language suited to persons of education. M. Sainte Foi has
adopted a system which has at least the merit of being novel. His
three volumjes contain a complete set of Theological treatises,
modelled exactly on those read in the schools by divinity students.
We have a treatise on Religion, a Church treatise, a treatise on the
Incarnation, Sacraments, &c. The work is compiled from the
writings of St. Thomas, and the theology of Cardinal Gousset. It
is written in a simple and lucid style, the doctrine is accurately
stated, and the arguments are forcibly put. The book has received
the approbation of Cardinal Gousset

(9.) — Histoire de la Revelation, par M. 1'Abbe Bexard, ancien
Chef d'Institution — ^Ancien Testament, voL 1 and 2; — ^Nouveau
Testament, vol 3, f. 6. Sagnier et Bray.

This is a history of the Old and New Testament, with which is
incorporated a commentary on the most important passages of the
Scripture. The author has, however, fallen into a fault but too
common amongst those who have not made the theology of the
schools their peculiar study. He puts forward as almost de Jide,
many propositions, which, to say the least, are doubtful, and many
explanations of Scripture texts as unquestionable, while he has
against him the great body of commentators. He states every

262 French Catholic PubUcations. [Sept

thing as certain. Many of his propositions too are entirely
false. This is to be lamented, for the plan of the book is excellent,
and in many places well carried out.

(10) Nouveile Explication du CatecMsme de Rodez, dimseS en InstrueHont^
pouvant serois de prones, &c., par M. L'abde Noel, Chonoine hon.

&c. 7 vols. 12, f. 28. Pensic.

The exposition of Catholic doctrine is accnrate and abandant.
The matter for sermons and pastoral instructions is eminently prac-
tical, and the style is simple but yet noble, and full of unction. It
is a very useful book for a priest charged with the care of goals.
The Bishops of Rodez and Mende have reviewed the book, and
bestowed upon it the highest eulogy.

(11) Cateehisme de la Foi et des Mceu/rs Chretiens^ par M. de Lak-
TAGES, Superieur du Seminaire, &c.. Precede d'une notice sur la
Vie de I'Auteur. 1 vol. 8vo., f. 3.50. Sagnier and Bray.

This little work was written 150 years ago, and had been com-
pletely forgotten, when one of the Sulpitian Community, stmck by
its excellence, gave a new edition of it. It is one of the best books
of its size on the subject.

(12) Concilium Provincice Avenionensis Avenione iio^tftim, A.D., 1849.
1 voL 4to.

Another of the late provincial councils of France. The acts i^
this council have just been printed. The text is divided into three
parts ; the first contains matters relative to the convocation &c. of
tiie Council ; the second, the canons and decrees ; the third is an
appendix, including documents of great importance. The whole
forms a magnificent quarto volume, beautifully printed on fine
paper, and with every typographical embellishment.

•

(13) Breviarium Romanum, ex decreto Conctlii Tridentiniy cvm cjficm
Sanctorum usque in hanc diem coneessis^ 4 vols. 12ma Papier ordi

naire f. 14, papier chine, f. 18.

* The Catholic publishers of Paris have formed themselves into a
society, under the direction of an ecclesiastical commission, for the
issue of a new edition of the Roman Liturgy. A Breviary in large
12mo. has already appeared, printed after the last Roman edition,
completed in 1848. It is very exact, and is printed in new type,
rather larger than usual. Part of the edition is taken on Chmm
paper. In press are superb Missals of different sizes, some with
rea rubrics and some without, fully equal, if not superior, to the
most beautiful of Hanicq*s deservedly popular editions.

1851.] French Catholic Publications. 263

(14) Le Gradud Romain, 1 vol. 12ino., f. 3. Lecofifre.

Up to this, the onlj Graduals and Vesperals of small size to be
obtained, in addition to being wretchedly printed, differed consi-
derably from the Roman Graduals and Vesperals in common use.
The above- mentioned Gradual was prepared at the instance of
Cardinal Gousset. It was submitted to His Holiness, who caused
it to be collated with the Roman editions, and pronounced it sub-
Btantiallj correct. A Vesperul in the same style will soon appear.

(15) De Vunite dans les Chants Liiur^ques; mot/ens de Vobtenir, par
le R. P. Lambillote, S. J. 1 voL 4to. Poussielgue Rusand.

Fere Lambillote has deyoted roanj years to the study of the old
Gregorian Music. He here explains the method of reading the
ancient characters, of which he gives some specimens. Some of
these representing the notation used before the time of Qui
d*ArrezOy are now for the first time published.

(16) Ghrie a Marie: Becueil de Nouveaux Cantiques dedies a son
Immaculee Conception: mis en musique a deux ou trois voix^ avec
aecompagnement d'^orgue ou, de piano, par Herman. 1 voL 12mo,
f. 8. Perisse.

The history of this book is curious. M. Herman, a German Jew,
enjoyed a high reputation in Paris, as a pianist and composer. At
the opening of the month of Mary, the organist of one of the
Churches failed to attend. M. Herman was requested to take his
place at the organ, and consented. During the service his heart
was touched; before the end of the month be became a Catholic,
and is now a monk of the Carmelite Order. In gratitude to his
patroness, he composed these hymns in her honour. The poetry
contains some excellent passages, and the music is worthy of Her*
man's well-known talents.

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, ARCHEOLOGY, &C.

(17) Historie Religieuse Politique et Litter aire de la Compagnie de Jesus
Composee sur des documents medits et Authentiques, par J. Cretu-
REAN JoLY. 3 ed, 6 vols. 8vo., f. 28; and 6 vols. 18, f. 16.
Poussielgue.

This work, besides passing through two French editions, has been
three times translated into Italian, twice into Spanish, and twice
into German. The third edition, which has just appeared, has
undergone considerable improvement Some errors regarding
names, dates, and minute details of facts, have been corrected. The
documents, and other quotations which the book contains, have been

264 French Catholic PuhUcations. [Sept

compared with the originals^ and rendered scrupulouslj exact. The
revision has been superintended bj some of the Fathers of the
societj. In addition to this, many new facts have been added,
which tend to throw new light on important points. A large num-
ber of notes have been appended, and an alphabetical index placed
at the end. An English translation is preparing for the press.

(18) Etudes sur la Collection des Acta Sanctorum, par let R.R., PJ^.,
Jesuites BoUandistes, par le R. P. Dom. Pitra, moine Benedictin.

1 vol. 8vo., f. 4,50. Lecoffre.

The title of this book marks it as one of interest, and the name of
Dom. Pitra is a sufficient guarantee of its excellence. The bodj of
the work is preceded bj a learned dissertation on the various col-
lection^ of sacred biography in existence before the sixteenth
century. After noticing the records of the early Church, and
sketching the labours of those who immediately preceded the Bol«
landists, Ribadeneira, Surius, Lippomanni, and others, he com*
mences with Hubert Rosweyde, who first conceived the design of
the Acta Sanctorum. The third chapter describes the foundation of
the gigantic undertaking, and the labours of Bollandus. The fourth
and fifth are taken up with an account of the travels of the Bol-
landists in search of materials. The seventli gives an idea of the
immense correspondence which they carried on with all parts of
the world. The eighth contains details concerning the manner of
printing the work, correcting the press, &c. The controversies into
which the fathers were drawn, and the persecution they suffered,
occupy the ninth and tenth chapters. The book ends with the
history of the fifty- fourth volume, published in 1847, and an accoont
of the present condition of the Bollandist society.

(19) Histoire de la Revolution de Rome. Tableau ReUgieux
Politique et MUitaire des annees 1846, 1847, 1848, 1849, and
1850, en Italie, par M. Alphonse Balletdier, 2 vols. 8vo., f. 13.
Au comptoir des Imprimeurs Unis.

This history of the Roman Revolution has met with great and
well-merited success. It has already reached the third edition.
M. Balleydier writes with all the energy and feeling of a m%ia who
is penetrated with a sense of the justice and holiness of the cause
which, though a historian, he is forced to espouse. He paints in
vivid colours tlie scenes of horror of which Rome was so long the
theatre, the sufferings of the benevolent PontiflP, and the heartless
ingratitude and cruelty of the Mazzini party. The book possesees
all the attraction, all the interest of a powerftilly written nowL
Yet this does not prevent the author from detailing faithfully tiie
important events which he has undertaken to describe. During '
a long stay in Italy, he had under his eye most of the dooumeBta
relative to the proceedings, and learned the oocnrrences firom the

18SI.] Fretu^ Catholic Publications. 265

moalhA of the principal actors. He has produced a complete
and faithful historj of the Roman Revolution, and one which has
already rendered important services to the cause of truth. We
understand that an English translation of the work is being pre-
pared.

(20) Le Genie de la France a diverges, epoques, Recits et tableatuf,
offerU a la Jeunesse, par M. Champagnat, 1 vol. 8vo., f. 8.
Lehnbj.

This book is well adapted to the purpose for which it is intended.
It eommtinicates in a very pleasing form a large amount of histori-
cal information. A scholar, wandering through a forest, meets
with a venerable old man, the Genius of France, who takes him up
and carries hira, not from place to place, but from century to
century, through the ages of French history. He introduces him
to the most remarkable scenes in the dififerent periods, allows him
to see and converse with the most celebrated personages, &c. The
iFolnme is beautifnlly got up, and is illustrated with sixteen coloured
lithographs.

(21) Etudes Critiques sur les travatue Historiques de M. Guizot, par
M. A. Gainet.

The author convicts M. Guizot of having neglected to point out
the effect of Christianity upon the morality of society, and shews
the revolutionary tendency of some principles laid down by him.

(22) Examen critique des Doctrines Historiques de M. Augustin Thierry^
par Leon Aubineau, 12mo., Bibliotheque Nouvelle.

M. Aubineau manifests a perfect acquaintance with the history
of the period, and rare sagacity in exposing the one-sided state-
ments by which M. Thierry supports his attack on the Church, and
Monarchical Grovemment. His disquisition on Lanfranc is an
admirable piece of history.

(23) Monogra/fhie de VEglise Primatidle de Bordeaux, par Mgr. Donnet
Archev^ue de Boideaux. Faye a Bordeaux.

It is astonishing with what rapid strides the study of Archeology
18 advancing in France. In all parts of the country, books on the
subject are appearing, describing some ancient building, recount-
ing the discovery of hidden treasures, or systematizing the mau
of information already gathered. We have feuilletons in the
provincial journals, articles, brochures, and books of no small size.
The olergy have entered warmly into the movement ; indeed, they
form the great body of contributors. Even the Archbishop of
Bordeaux has not thought it beneath him to give a description of

266 French Catliolic Publications, ' [Sepf.

his cathedral. The church of St. Andre was commenced in the
eleventh century, and bears the stamp of almost everj transition
in style, during the four succeeding ages. Mgr. Donuet gives first
the history of the Church, and then proceeding on these data, he
describes minutely the details of the buildiug. marking the peca*
liarities of each portion, and its relation to the age to which it
belongs.

(24) Description de la CathedraJe de ChartreSy par M. Bulteau,
1 voL 8vo., f 5. Sagnier and Bray.

The cathedral of Chartres is one of the finest in France, and
richest in historical reminiscences. Three artists, employed by the
government, have been engaged during the last ten years, in pre-
paring a monographie of ic, but as yet four plates only have appeared,
M. Bulteau, less tardy than they, has made the cathedral the sub-
ject of a very interesting book. He gives a summary history of
the edifice, describes the interior, exterior, monuments, statues,
stained glass. Jbc. and gives in the end a notice of the other
churches of Chartres.

(25) Rome Souterraine^ par M. Ferret.

The publication of this magnificent work has been undertaken
by the French government ; tiiey have obtained from the chamber
a vote of f. 200,000 for the purpose. Towards the end of the six-
teenth century, the catacombs were re-discovered, or rather explored
with an ardour, until then unknown. It is well known what light
was thereby thrown on the early periods of Church history, and
what valuable archcological treasures were exposed to view. A
number of valuable works began to appear, describing the dis-
coveries, and giving plates of the incriptions, sculpture, paintings,
&c. Bosio, after thirty years patient research, published the result
of his labours in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Hit
investigations were followed up by Boldetti, Arringhi, Marangoni,
&c., and still later by D'Agincourt, Raoul Rochette, ifeo. Their
works, though of great value, left much to be desired. Most of
their engravings were small and inaccurately copied. Sometimes,
indeed, they merely took a note of the objects, and sketched
them afterwards from memory. Besides, the chambers which they
visited were comparatively few. M. Perret, a French architect
and artist, devoted the last five years to the examination of the
catacombs, during which time, at vast labour and expense, he
explored more than sixty, forming together a labyrinth of nearly
three hundred leagues in extent. He discovered treasures of the
existence of which not even a suspicion had been entertained. He
made drawings of one hundred and forty-nine frescos, of whioh
thirty-five only had been sketched by his predecessors. Amongst
others, he gives those with which the well of Platonia had been

1851.] Irench Catholic Publications. ' 267

decorated in tbe year 365, bj order of Pope Damasus. This well
served for some time as the tomb of the apostles Peter and Paul,
and has been now re-opened for the first time. Most of the newlj-
discovered paintings belong to the first and second centurj. Some
are rude enough, but others, such as that of Moses striking the
rock, exhibit traits not unworthy of the great masters of more recent
times. It is curious to observe the remains of Pagan forms, pre-
served in some of the earliest : thus the good shepherd is sometimes
Represented with the crook and pipe of the classic poets. Of archi-
tectural remains we have seventy-three sheets. There are five
hundred fac similes of inscriptions, representations innumerable of
inorcels of stained glass, lamps, vases, ornaments, &c. All these
•lave been copied by M« Perret and his assistants, with scrupulous
iccuracv. The paintings were all counter- drawn, and where neces-
sary reduced on the spot. The stone work, sculptures, &c., were
all measured. The entire will be contained in 360 large folio
lithographs, accompanied by a proportionate amount of letter press.

(25^ — Manu^ d'Archeologie Reltgieuse, Cimle, et Militatre, par M.
OuDiN, 3 edition augmentii, 1 vol. 8vo., f. 4. Lecoffre.

This is an elementary book, but very complete in its way. A.
great deal of matter is condensed within a small compass. It con-
tains a large number of plates.

(26.) — Histoire de VAhbaye de Morimond, diocese de LangreSy par
I'Abbe Dubois. 1 vol. 8vo., f. 6, Sagnier and Bray.

'•*•«

The history of the abbey of Morimond is not one which interests
those alone who are acquainted with its locality ; Morimond exer-
cised immense influence over the entire of Europe. It was the
parent of more than 700 monasteries and convents, spread through-
out France, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Poland, &c. The family of
Morimond, besides ceuobites, comprises military orders also. Hence
its history leads us into the consideration of some of the gravest
social questions relating to the Middle Ages.

M. Dubois is a man of acknowledged talent, and immense erudi-
tion ; he writes in an easy style, and was in every way well fitted
for the task which he set before him.

(27.) — AsMmodre general du Diocese d^ Orleans, pour 1851, 1 vol.
I2mo. f. 8.50. Gatureau a Orleans.

This publication, besides the statistics of the diocese, contains
historical and archeological notices regarding the parishes, churches,
and monuments of Orleans. It is intended to pursue the same
course every year, so that before long, a quantity of curious and
valuable information will have been collected. We find in the

268 French Catholic Puhlications. [Sept.

present number some interesting facts regarding the first reyolntion,
gathered from the few who liyed to remember its horrors.

(2S.) — AhnaiUKk du Cler^S de France, pour PAn de Grace, 185L
1 voL 12mo., f. 6. Gaume.

The Almanack du Clerg6 was commenced twenty jeors ago, but
after meeting with many difficulties was diseontioued in 1844. Its
publication has been resumed this year by M. Gaume. It forms a
thick volume of 800 pages. It is to be regretted that it gives the
names of the Dignitaries and Cures of the first class only — thus the
great body of tlie French Clergy is omitted altogether. ,

(29.) — Dtscours mr VHistaire EocUsia^tique, par M. PAbbe Regsvecr
Doyen, et Professeur de la Faculty de Theologie de Paris. 1 voL
1 2 mo., f. 5. Lenxux.

The object of this work is to trace the effect of Christianity upon
civilization and morals. The author reviews the several changes
which the state of society has undergone since the Christian era» and
marks the various benefits conferred by the influence of the
Church. The last chapter treats of the French Revolution.

PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE, ETC.

(30.) — Eefiexions mr mes EntreHens avec M, le Due de la Vauguyonj
par Louifi Auguste, Dauphin (Loui8 XVI.), preced^es d^une intra<
duction par M. de Falloux. 1 voL 8vo. f. 6. Ailaud.

The young Duke of Berry was confided at the end of his sixth
year, to the care of the Due de la Vauguyon. This nobleman, who,
in addition to talents of a high order, and consummate knowled|^
of the world, was imbued with a deep religious feeling, proved emi-
nently qualified to undertake the trust committed to his charge.
The young prince, being naturally of a reflective turn, studied
deeply the sound principles suggested to kim, and committed the
result of his meditations to writing. These reflections, printed
from a manuscript copy in the hand of tlie Comte de Provence
(Louis XVIII.), are presented to the world by M. de Falloux, for-
merly minister of public instruction. Of their authenticity there
can be no doubt. They are divided into thirty-three meaitations
or chapters, and treat of the duties of kings towards God, their
subjects, and themselves. They exhibit an enlightened mind, aad
a heart filled with benevolence and solid piety. It is strange to
find the Dauphin insisting so much on the necessity of firmness in
princes, the want of which quality proved afterwards so fatal to
liim. He seemed also convinced that he possessed it^ for he says

1851.] French Catholic Publicatiom. 6C9

of himself, '' I have sounded my heart, and searched there for ihQ
marks of that firmness which should belong to Princes — I am satis-
fied with the result." The introduction bj M. de Falloux adds con-
siderably to the interest of the work, it is in eyery way worthy of
the high reputation of the ex-minister.

(31.) — Lettre a M. Vcuheroty Directewr des etudes ci> Vecde Normcdey
par M. 1'Abbe Grattry, ancien Aumonier de I'Ecole Normale, 1 voL
• 8vo., f. 3. Graiune.

M. Yacherot some years ago gained a prize offered by the Insti-
tute for an Essay upon the School of Alexandria. He since ex-
tended his essay to three volumes, which he filled with gross
calumnies against the Church, and scandalous attacks on the
Catholic doctrine. M. Grattry, haying resigned his Chaplaincy in
order to act with greater freedom, analyzed and refuted in the
aboye admirable work the doctrioes of his infidel colleague.

The upshot of the matter was that M. Yacherot was dismissed
by the minister of public instruction, to the great disedification of
the so-called liberal party.

(32.) — Les Psaumes traduits en Vers FrancaiSy par M. Guerrier de
DuMAST, accompagnes d' Arguments et de Notes, et mis en Regard
d'un Texte Latin litteral, 3 vols. 8vo. f. 15. Yaguer It Nancy.

This work consists of two parts, one a commentary, complete
and faithful, upon the Psalms, extracted from our best authors; the
Qther» a translation of the Psalter into French metre. Notwith*
standing the serious obstacles which the genius of the French laui-
guage presented, the author has been completely successful ih
rendering the figurative diction and the rich oriental colour of the
original. The work has been honoured by the warm approbation of
the Bishop of Nancy. The author has devoted to the undertaking
his leisure hours for the last twenty years. It is singular that
another person in Toulouse has completed a similar translation
without being aware of the design of M. Dumast.

(33.) — Lettres et Opusceules Inedits du Camte Joseph de Maistre^
preeedees d''tme notice hwgraphiquey par son iils le Cohte Eodolph
DE Maistre. 2 vols. 8vo. f. 12. Vaton.

The publication of these letters, pamphlets, &c., has been hailed
with delight as a valuable addition to the literature of the country.
The first volume contains the private correspondence of De Maistre,
during a period extending from the year 1794, to the year 1820.
These letters raise the veil from his private life, and exhibit hia
character in its true light. We can see from them that De Maistre
was far from being the savage Tertullian, the ultramontaue ogre,
which the disciples of Cousin and Dupin represent him to be. We

270 French Catholic Publications. [Sept.

see in him an affectionate friend and brother, and an OYer-fond
father, a conscientious defender of real liberty, and an enemy of
despotism. What St. Beuve said of him is perfectly true, "la plus
belle partie de sa vie est la partie cachee qu*on ne ]ira pas." The
second volume contains a number of pamphlets and short essays,
some on religious questions relative to Protestantism, the Greek
Church, the .State of Christianity in Europe, <bc. ; others on politi-
cal topics, the internal affairs of Russia, Piedmont, Savoy, &c. ;
others, again, on philosophical and religious subjects. — Some of
these have been published before but are no longer to be found.
They are now', for the first time, collected in one volume. Some
letters addressed to M. de Maistre, by M. de Bonald and other
celebrities of the day, complete the collection. The whole is pre-
ceded by an introduction from the pen of Louis Veuillot, a
distinguished writer and successful imitator of De Maistre.

(34.) — Poemes des Bardei Bretons da Qme Siede; tradtdts pour la
premiere fois avec h texte eu regard, des notes ; et tme tsUroduetion^
par Th. Hers art de la Villemarque. Renouard.

M. de la Villemarque is a native of Brittany, and has devoted
his life to the study and publication of the traditions of his native
soiL He belongs to the Catholic school of writers, and has con-
stantly endeavoured to make the result of his researches subserrient
to the the cause of Catholic truth. He is already known to the
world by his *^Essai sur VEistoire de la Langue Brelotme, in which he
establishes the relation between the language of Brittany, and the
three cognate dialects, the Irish, Erse, and Welsh, oome time
since, the course of his investigations brought him into Wales. He
studied the dialect of the Welsh, listened to their songs and tradi-
tions, and searched through the libraries for the remains of their
old literature. The present work contains the chief result of his
labours. It is principally taken up with the poems of three Bards ;
Taliesin, Ancurin, and Licvarc*heun, the date of which he fixes in
the sixth century. It is interesting to observe in these pieces, the
truths of Christianity, mingled with, but yet overruling the tra-
ditions of the ancient Druids. We can trace the old mythology
receding before the Gospel, but still leaving some of its forms
remaining in the ideas of the newly converted people.

(35) BibUographie des Joumcdistes, par Texier, 1 voL I8mo., £ 2.

Pagnerre.

A great portion of this work has appeared already in a series of
articles published in the Illustration, under the head of ^ Voyage a
Traverii les Jonrnaux.'* It professes to sketch the history of all the
daily papers circulating in Paris, to give an idea of the tendency of
each, and biographical notices of the principal writers. The task is

1851.] French Catholic Publications. 271

executed with considerable ability and great fairness. It is a work
of no small utility. *

(36) Le Sdlut de la France^ par le P. Debretke, 1 voL 8vo., f. 2.
Poussielque.

The unsettled state of French politics, and the dangers which
menace society on erery side, have been, of late, fertile subjects for
political and politico-religious writers. Articles, and pamphlets,
and books, without number, haye been written on the subject, each
endeayouring to point out the cause and the seat of the malady,
and professing to suggest a safe and certain remedy. Fere
Debreyne, with much truth, makes the source of all the eyils which
haye fallen on France, consist in the rejection of religious sanction
from the institutions of the country, and in the unchristian system
pursued by the uniyersity. He proposes a plan for the organization
of the Catholic party, in which, amongst other things, he suggests
the fusion of the religious press into one journal, which should be
the accredited organ of French Hierarchy, and the establishment of
classes of haules etudes for ecclesiastics.

(37) liC Ver Rongeur des Societes ModemeSy ou le Paganisme dans
rEdtusatioHy par l'Abbe Gaume, 1 vol. f. 4. Gaume.

A work of similar character appeared from the same author in
1836. He contends that the immorality of modern society, the
spirit of revolt, the irreligious tendencies which everywhere prevail,
must be traced to the lessons of pride and sensuality learned during
the course of classical education. ' He shews that before the six-
teenth century, the youth were not allowed to read pagan authors,
until their minds were first formed in the Christian mould, while,
since that time, it is from pagan sources they imbibe their first
notions of literature, philosophy, and art, ana that society conse-
quently commenced to manifest tendencies before unknown. The
author possesses erudition of no ordinary kind, and seems familiar
with the principles which should guide education.

(38) VEgliM et VEtatj par Melchior du Luc, 2 vols., 18mo. f. 4.
Bibliotheque Nouvelle.

The author undertakes to explain and defend the Catholic doc-
trine, with regard to the relations between the power of the Roman
Pontiff and that of Christian princes. He commences by investigating
the origin of governments; he shews that their authority is fundamen-
tally dejure dinivo, but merely human in its form and organization.
The second book explains the nature of the power vested in the
Head of the Church. The third treats of their mutual relations,
and shews how and by what right the authority of the state is
lubordinate to that of the Church. The fourth contains a number

272 Trench Catholic Publications. [Sept.

of arguments derived from the Scripturee, from tradition, councib,
fathers, &c., and adduced in support of the conolusione adraneed
in the treatise. Those oonclusions are asserted fearlessly enough,
and will surprise manj readers.

(39) De VAviorite et du Respect que lui est dii, par le R, P. Chastjbl,
S.J., 1 vol. 18mo. f, 2. Sagnier et Bray.

This work touches upon the same subject. P^re Ghastel thinki
that, to create respect for authority, the grounds and sanction of
that authority should be clearly made known. He establishes a
number of sound principles regarding the nature and origin of civil
government, supports them by solid argument, and proves his doc-
trine to be in perfect conformity with that of St. Thomas, and the
other great masters of theology. It is one of the best books writ-
ten on the subject.

(40) L*Ethique de J^mosa, pai* Leon oe Montbelliard. Joubert

Although almost everything which this book contains has been
said over again in our classic treatises on philosophy, it is calculate
ed to effect some good. Many young men tainted with, the prev|kil-
ing pantheistic doctrine, will be tempted to read it, and will find
not only the system of Spinosa successfully combated, but also
the many theories upon it, which have since sprung from its princi-
ples. The work is written in a clear and vigorous style, i^nd eaa
be easily understood even by those who have not made metfiphyaicc
their study.

(41) Causeries du Sair, par Alphonse de Milly, 1 voL, 8va, £ 7*

Perisse.

M. de Milly is the author of a " Revue Analytique et critique
des Romans Contemporains,'' a work invaluable to those who are
entrusted with the care of youth, and who have neither time nor
inclination to read such books. The author, aware that, particu-
larly amongst females, irreligion proceeds oftener from ignorance
than from anything else, thought it would be well if the truths of
the gospel were presented to such persons in an attractive form, so
as to be readable even by the readers of novels. As a medium for
conveying such information, he has chosen, in the present work, a
series of dialogues between a young lady abandoned by her hus-
band, and au old relative of her father's, in whose house she has
taken refuge. The wor]^ has received from the Bishop of Bayeux
au imprimatur, accompanied by a strong recommendation.

(42) Le ConseiUier de la Jeunesse, par M. Lesuhe, 1 voL, 12mo»
f. 1.50. Perisse.

A sea captain returning to his home in Harfleur, after many

1851.] French Catholic Publications. 273^

jears of sea life, and finding his children neglected, sets about to
educate them himself. The book contains a number of dialogues
between the old captain and his children, and conyejs a great deal
of solid information in a yerj pleasing form.

(43) La Lyre des petits Enfants^ par A. Cordieb, 1 vol., 12md.
Reboux a Lille.

A collection of yerj charming poems. Although intended for
children, some of them are so exquisitely beautiful, and breathe
such a spirit of true poetrj, as to be read with pleasure bj all.
" Les deux petits Dauphins de France,*' a short poem on the two sons of
Charles VI., poisoned bj their uncles, is not unworthy of Lamar-
tine.

NEW EDITIONS.

THEOLOGY, ASCETIC WORKS.

Explication, Historique, Dogmatique, Morale, Liturgique, et Canoni-
qne du Catechisme, avec la reponse aux objections tirees des
Sciences centre la Religion, par TAbb^ GuiUois, 6 ed., 4 vols.
12mo. f. 12. Monnojer au Mans.

Explication des Evangiles des Dimanches et de quelques unes des
principales Fetes de TAnnee, i vols. 12mo. f. 6. Perisse.

Instructions Chretiennes pour les jeunes Gens, avec des Traits
d'Histoire et des Exemples edifiants. Edition augment^e des
prieres du matin et du soir, &c. Lefort 4 Lille.

Litanies de la tres Sainte Vierge lUustrees, Accompagnees de Medi-
tations, par M. rAbb6 Barthe. 30 livaisons sent paru ; prix de
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La Premiere Communion, Oours d'Instructions, precede d'une
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Rennes.

Preuves Abregees de la Religion, Offertes a la Jeunesse avant son
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La Sainte Communion c*est ma Vie ; ou Chants d' Amour de TAme
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Meditation, &c. Marae a Tours.

Amelia, Essai de Demonstration Catholique au dix neuviene Siecle
par rAbb6 Berge. 1 vol. 8vo. f. 2. Perisse.

Conformity do la Foi Catholique, et de la Constitution de TEglise
avec TEcriture Sainte et TEglise Primitive, par Mgr. Douey,
ev^que de Montauban. 1 vol. ISmo. c. 75. Garden. H Trovs.

Meditations pour la Fdte du Divin Ccsur de Jesus, &c,, par le Pere
Eudes. 1 vol. 18mo. f. 1. Delsol. i Toulouse.

VOL. XXXL-No. LXL 18

274 French Catholic Pablicaiions. [Sept

La Sainte Mcsse, Potit Vesperal des Dimanclies et Fdtes, et Paanraei

Graduols, Traduits en vers Francais, par Argist. 1 yol. 12ino.

MaisoQ.
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Done J. I^ouvello Edition, revue et corregee, 2 vols. 8vo. f. 8.

Lagnj.
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Soir, par TAbbe Doncet, 1 vol. gr. 18mo, c. f. 3, 50. Vaton.
St. Gregoire de Naziaiize ; sa Vie, et extraits, deses ecrits, avecuneta-

ble des Matieres. 1 vol. 8vo. f. 3. Lefort a Lille.
Abrege du Catccbisme, imprime par ordre ou derniere ooncilei

Provincial d'Avignon. 1 vol. 12mo. f. I. Veal i Digne.
Cardme de 1851, par rAbb6 Geno. 1 vol. 8vo. f. L Chex TAuteur k

Macon.
Appel k la Jeunesse Catholique centre TEsprit du Siecle, par le

R. P, Mariu de Bojleave, 1 vol. ISmo. Leclerc.
L'Annee Liturgique ; 3 me. section par le R. P. Dom. Prosper Oner-
anger, Abbe de Solosmes, 1 vol. 8vo. f 3. 75. Lecoffre.
Ileures Catholiqucs d*un Serviteur de Dieu, Exercises de Piete^ par

M. Viannej, Cure, &c,, 1 vol, 18mo. Mothon k Lyon.
Litanies do Lorette, par A. Moucherot, 1 vol. ISmo. o. 7S» Do

Mongeot.
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de rOraison Dominicale, &o, 1 vol. 8vo, f. 3. 50. Gaume.
Cantiques Nouveaux en Thonneur de la tries Saiute Vierge. par

TAbbo Gombalot, 1 vol. 12mo. Pelagaud a Lyon.
Do TEglise Gallicane dans ses Rapports avec le Souverain Pontife:

pour servir do Suite i I'ouvrago Du Pape, par le Comte de Mais-

tre, 1 vol. Svo. f. 3. 50, Pelagaud a Ljon.
Jubile do 1850, Instructions, Meditations, et Prierds, par L.

Schauer. 1 vol. 18mo. f. 0.75, Lagnv.
Metbode Pratique pour faire le Catechisme, 2 vols. I2mo. f. 4.25.

Pelagaud h Ljon.
Explications dos Ceremonies de la Mes<ie selon le rit de l^Eglise

Maronite, par le R. P. Azard. 1 vol. 12mo. Mormojer au

Mans.
La Journ6o du Chretien Sanctified, &c., nouv. ed. 1 voL S2mo. f. 1.

Pelagaud.
Lettres Catboliques Sur TEvangile, par TAbbe C. Massiot I vol.

8vo. f. 0.75. Dentu.
Manuel du jeune Scminariste en Vacances. 1 vol. 18mo. f. 1.20.

Pelagaud.
Le Clef du Tresor de TEglise; ou los Indulgences expliqu6ei anz

fideles, par TAbbe Ravicr. 1 vol. 12mo. f. 2.50. Gaume.
Instructions sur la Car^me et les quatre Fins de rhommo, par

M. TAbbe Boaume. I vol. 12mo. Lecoffre.
Soirees Chretiennos ou Theoiogio du Peuple, lecons sur la notion

1851.] French Catholic Publications. 275

da Chretien, la Nature de DIeu et la Creation, par rAbb6 Gridel,

1 vol. 12mo. Vagner.
Li?re du Mariage ; CouteDant les ceremonies et la Messe du Mariage^

les Ceremonies du Bapteme, &c., 1 vol. 16mo. f. 1.50 Gunner.
Meditations pour tous les jours et fetes de I'ann^e selon la metbode

des pretres de St. Sulpice> par TAbbe de Brandt, 2 toIs. 12mo.,

f. 4. Perisse.
Delices des ames pieuse, 17 ed., 2 vols, 18mo., f. 4.75. Gaume.
L'Ange de la Semaine, par TAbb^ Mathias, 1 vol. 12mo., f. 1.

Leclerc.
Manuel de 1* Adoration Perpetuel, 1 vol. 18mo., f. 1.30. Gaume.
Lettres sur le Celibat Ecclesiastique, par TevSque d'Alger. Vatin.
Medications, &c., par TAbbe Berillerie, 3 ed., f. 1.50. Sagnier

et Braj.
Conseils a mes Enfants sur la Religion, . 1 toI. 12mo., c. 75.

Sagnier et Braj,
Amour ^ Jesu Christ, 4 Cantiques, par Herman, f. 12. Perisse.
Le livre des Ames — Le Mois de la Reine des Saintes — Le Mois da

Precieux Sang, par M. Charles Sainte Fois, 3 vols, 12mo.,

Poussielgue.
Le Per^ Augustin, par TAbb^ Jujat, 1 yol. 12mo., f. 0.50.

Gaume.
La Raison Philosophique et la raison Catholique, Conferences

PrSchees a Paris dans TAnnee 1851, Augmeut^es et accom«

5agn6es de remarques et de notes, par le R. P. Ventura de
^uulica Ancien General de TOrder des Theatines, 1 toI. 8vo.,
f. 5. Gaume.
Du Droit Ecclesiastique dans des principes generaaz, par G.
Philips, Professeur de la faculte dlnspruck. Traduit par M.
Crouzet, 3 vols., Sfo. f. 18. Leooffre.

HISTORY, ARCHEOLOGY, ifec.

Peuple et Roi. Etudes Historiques da Troisieme Siecle, par L, D.

Molaud. *

Les Eglises de TArrondissement du Hayre, et de rArrondissement

de Dieppe, par TAbbe Cochet, 4 vols. 8vo. Didror.
Relation de I'Arrestation, eto de Mgr. Fransoni Archey^que de

Turin, 1 vol. 8vo., f. 0.75. Guizot.
Melanges Archeologiques, par les R. R. P. P. Cahier et Martin,
* la 6me. livraison du 2 de volume, renfermant des etudes sur leai

Bechares, Manuscrits du mojren age, dsc.,8 livraisons ferment

un volume, prix. f. 32. Poussielgue.
L^Histoire des Dues de Guise, par M. Ren6 de Bouille 4 vols. 8vo,

Amjot.
Histoire de L'Eglise du Mans par le R. P. Dom Piolin, Moine Bene*

dictin. Tome 1. 8vo. Julien Lancer.
Histoire Ecclesiastique de la Province de Treves et des paja

276 French Catholic Publications. [Sept.

limitrophes par M. TAbbe Chuchet Professeur a Verdan. Tome

1 and z, 870. (rOuvrage aura 3 volumes, prix de chaque £ 6.)

Lallemant.
Les Heroines Chretiennes ou Vies Edifiantes, par M. I'Abb^ ^

1 vol. 12mo. c. 75. Ardunt.
Messire de Glien, les Eglises et le Clerg6 de la ville du Havre de

grace (1516—1851) par M. TAbbe Le Comte. 1 vol. gr. 8vo.

Derache.
Notice'Historique sur Benoitevaux, par M. I'Abbe Bouellevaux, Curi

de Perthes. 1 vol. 8vo. Cavaviol k Chaumont.
La Vie du Comte Louis de Sales, frere de St. Francois de Sales, par

le R. P. Buffier. 1 vol. 12mo. f. 1. 26. Barbon a Limoge.
Histoire Chretienne de la Galifornie, par Madame la Contesse de »

1 vol. 12mo. f. 1. Lefranc k Arras.
Histoire de la ville de Gray et de ses Monuments, par M. TAbb^

Gatin and M. TAbbe Bessin. 1 voK 8vo. avec planches f. 10.

Lefort k Lille.
La Vie de Saint Eloi evdque de Nojon et de Toumai; par Saint Ouen

Evdque de Rouen, Traduite et annotee, par M. TAbb^ Parentj

Lefranc ^ Arras.
Histoire de France depuis les temps les plus recent jusqu' k la

Revolution de 1789, par Auquetil. Suivie de I'Histoire de la Repab-

lique Francaise du directoire, du consulat, de TEmpire, de la

Restauration, de la Revolution de 1830, and de 1848, Tome 1.

8vo. Clave.
Les Vies des Saints et des Personnes d*une Eminente Piete des

dioceses de Cambrai et d' Arras, par TAbbe Destembes, 2 toIs.

12mo. f. 2. Deligne, Cambrai.
Bibliographic Uuiverselle de Feller, revue sous la direction de M.

I'Abbe Simonin. 8 vols. 8vo. f. 48. Poussielgue.
Continuation de THistoire de France, d*Anquetil depuis la mort

de Louis XVI. 1 vol. 18mo. Gamier.
Annales Biroohines : ou Abreg^ de I'Histoire du Diocese de Saint

Brieue, par TAbbe Ruffelet, nouv. ed. 1 vol. 12mo. t 1.75.

Prud'homme.
Bulletin Monumental, ou Collection de Memoirs et de renseigne*

ments, sur la Statisque Monumentale de la France, par let

Membres de la Society Francaise pour la Conservation des Monu-
ments. 1 vol. 8vo. f. 12. Derache.
Essai Historique et Archeologique sur le Canton de Londoniereii

par M. I'Abbe Decorde. 1 vol. 8vo. f. 3. Derache.
Histoire du Prieuredu Mont-aux-Malades-Ies-Rouen, et Correspon-
dence de ce prieur avec St Thomas de Cantorb^rji par TAbbe

Langlois. 1 vol. 8vo. f, 7. Fleurj k Rouen.
Notice Sur I'Origine et les Developpements de TOrdrede Cannes; par

Ade Chateauneuf. 1 vol. 12mo. f. 50. Monnover au Man9.
Vies de I'Abbe de I'Epee, de I'Abbe Sicard, et de nauj; par Egron—

Prix c. 50. Plou.

iSSi.j French Catholic Publications. 277

Biographie da Cardinal P. Giraud, Arohev^ue de Cambrai; par F.
Delarfeul. 1 vol. 870. Lebojer a Riom.

Essai Sur la Vie et lea Travaux de Mons. Flaget Ev^que de Bards-
town et de Louisville; par son Secretarie H. Gretiche de Leroux«
1 vol 12mo. Perisse.

PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE, &C.

Des Principes de la Revolution Fran9aise consider6s, comme Princi-

pes Generateurs da Socialisme et du Communisme, par M. Albert

da Bojo, 1 vol. 8vo., f. 5. Poussielgue.
Les Grandes Questions Sociales, par I'Abb^ Guillen, 1 voL Svo.,

f. 2. Sagnier et Braj.
Souvenirs et Examples, Petits Notices Offertes aux jeunes Chreti-

ennes, par. Mgr. I'Ev^que de Thaumacum, 1 vol. 12mo., f. 2.

Lecoffre.
Recueil de Poesies a TUsage des Jeunes Personnes, par J. P.

Worms, Chef d'Institution, 1. vol. Svo., f. 5. Sagnier et Braj.
Idees sur TEducation, par un Professeur de Pbilosophie, I vol.

12mo., f. 1.50. Gujet
La Crise Sociale Consider^e dans sou Issue possible, par M. Leoon-

drais, 1 vol. 12mo., f. 2. Aii profit des Matelots invalides.
Marguerite Robert, par M. Tiillie. Moneuse.
line fete Bresilienne Celebr^e a Rouen, en 1550, par Ferdinand

Denis. Techener.
Correspondance entre le Comte de Mirabeau et le Comte de La-
marck, pendant les Annees 1789, 1790, et 1791, recueillie, mise

in ordre, et publico, par M. de Bacourt, ancien Ambassadeur de

France, pros la Cour de Sardiagne, 3 vols. 8vo. Veuve Le Nor-

mant,
Hemoire Presentee au Clerge et a TAristocratie, par M. B. Saint

Bonnet, 1 vol. 8vo., f. 6. Sagnier and Braj.
De la Libert^ Religieuse en Perou, par M. Teurel, 1 voL 8vo.

Schmitz.
Etudes de Morale, 1 vol. 8vo. Leroux and Joubj.
Gonseils aux Meres pour la premiere Education du Coeur, par Mme.

Fannj MarescbaL 2nd edition, 1 vol. 12mo., f. 1.50. Perisse.
Le Spectre Rouge de 1852, par M. A. Romien, 1 vol. 8vo., f. 1.25.

Ledojen.
Excursion en I'Orient. L. Egjpte, le Mont Sinai I'Arabie Pales-
tine, la Sjrie, le Liban, par M. le Comte Pardieu, 1 vol. 12mo.

Gamier.
Beaux Arts, 1851, Orsel et Overbeck, par Charles le Nonnant

Membre de Tlnstitut, 1 vol. 8vo. Desoje.
M. le Comte de Chambord a Wiesbaden, Souvenirs d*Aout, 1850,

par M. Theodore Anne, 1 vol. 12mo., f. 2. Ledojen.
De rEducation de THomme, par TAbbe Martinet, f. 2. Bibliothe-

que Nouvelle.

278 French Catholic Publications. [Sept,

Le Clef de la Philosophie ou la Verit6 sur TEtre et le DeToir, par

I'Abbe Felachou, 1 vol. 8vo. Lecoffre.
Choiz des Beaux Examples de Devouement ReligieuXy Ciyil, Mili«

taire, par M. TAbbe Laurent, 1 voL 12mo. Ardant a Limoges.
Guerre a TEglise du Village : ou les Mineurs de TOrdre Sociale

dans des Campagnes, par Bias le Batteur en Grange, 1 yoL

18mo. Sagnier and Braj.
Principes de Litterature, Theorique, et Critique, a TUsage des

Maisons d*Education, par M. l*Abbe Madenis, 2nd td, I toL

12mo., f. 2. Poussielgue.
Les ProTinciales ; ou les Lettres Ecrites par Louis de Montalte.

Edition NouTelle, arec notes Historiques, Litteraires, Philosophic

ques, et Theologiques, par TAbbe Maynard, 1 yoL 8to. Didot
Pascal; sa Vie et son Caractere, ses Ecrits et son GrenjOy par le

Memo, 2 vols. Sro. f. 10. Derobrj.
Etudes Philosophiques sur le Christianisme, par Auguste Nicholas,

Juge de pajx, 7 ed, Approuvee, par II. P. Lacordaire, 4 toIs.

8vo., f. 12. Vaton.
L*Italie Rouge, par le Vicomte d*Arlincourt^ 7 ed. rerua

Corrigee et considerablement augmentee, 1 voL ISmo. t Sb

AlloTard.
L*Angleterre Compar^e a la France sur les Rapports Constitutionels

et Religieux; par un Ancien Avocat, 1 toI. 12mo., f. 5. Courcier.
Consolations de la Religion dans la perte des Personnes qui nous

sort chores, par Louis Proyana, 1 yol. ISmo. Leclerc.
Be tour de Pie Neuf a Rome; Poeme Mentionn^. par TAcademie des

Jeux Floraux, par Louis Colin, I yol. Svo. Carette-Boudessein.
Commentaire siir la loi d'enseignement, du 15 May, 1850. Publie

par la Comite de TEnseignment, liyre sous la presidence de H.

le Comte Mole, 1 yol. 18mo., f. 2.50. Lecoffre.
(Euvres de TAbb^ Gourdon, precedes d*une notice sur sa yie. Tome

2, 8yo, Cosnier a Angers.
Rome en 1848, 1849, 1851, Correspondance d*un Officier Fran9aii

de TArmee Expeditiounaire d'ltalie, publico par TAbbe Boulauge,

2 vols. 8vo., Barbon a Limoges.
Chaunts Chretiens; L' Eternal est mon Cantiqne, Psaume oxyiii.

14. 1 yol. 18mo. Ducloux.
Philosophie Fondamentale, par Jacques|Balmes Traduite, JIm)., 3 Tola.

8yo., f. 15, et 3 vols, Imo., f. 10. Vaton.
Le Protestantisme Compart au Catholicisme, par Jacques Balraes*

traduite he, avcc une introduction, par A. de Blam^he RafiSn. 2

ed. ornee d*uu beau Portrait, 3 vols. 18mo., f. 10. Vaton.

1851.] Notices of Books. 279

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

I.— /I true account of the Hungarian Hevolution^ Us Purposes and
Pretences, Bj an American Democrat. With preliminary obser-
rations reflpecting the Liberals abroad, and the Liberal Party at
home. By William Bernard MacCabb, Author of '* A Catholic
History of England." London, Dublin, and Derby, Richardson
and Son, 1851.

In America^ as in England, the current of what is called
*' liberar* o{)inion, ran strongly in favour of the Hunga-
rian party in their struggle with Austria, in the late
Revolution. An able and well informed writer in the
New York Courier, undertook to combat the view so
commonly entertained, and to shew that however specious
its pretences and professions might be, the Hungarian
quarrel was not one '^ with which the Americans, as Re-^
publicans, were called on to sympathize.'* The essay of
this writer is reprinted by Mr. MacCabe in the above
interesting pamphlet : but as it was addressed to Ameri-
Cc^ns, and bears exclusive reference to the principles of the
American constitution, the Editor has prefixed to it along
and elaborate introduction, addressed directly to the peo-
ple of these countries, and especially to the Catholic
portion of the population.

As there is no subject on which so large an amount of
misunderstanding exists, we cannot too strongly recom-
mend the careful study of both parts of this pamphlet.
The second part abounds with minute and accurate infor-
mation as to the constitution, laws, usages, population and
social condition of this most extraordinary kingdom,
and places before the reader in a fair and dispassionate
review, the true grounds of the original decree of resist-
ance. The introduction, besides supplying much additional
information on Austrian affairs, will be found to contain a
ver^ curious contrast between the principles which the
" Liberals of England' ' apply to the consideration of
foreign affairs, and those upon which they act in the
administration of affairs at home.

280 Notices of Books. [Sept

II. — Annala Eioghachta Eireann, Annals of the Kingdom of IrekuuL
Bj the Four Masters. From the earliest period to the year
1616. Edited from MSS. in the Library of the Royal Irish
Academy, and of Trinity College, Dublin, with a Translation and
Copious Notes. By John O'Donoyan, Esq., M. R. I. A., Barrister
at Law. Royal 4 to. Vols. i. and ii. with the General Index,
(completing the work.) Dublin : Hodges and Smith, 1851.

We hasten to oflfer to Mr. Donovan our warmest thanks,
and to the Irish public our heartiest congratulations, on
the happy completion of this important and arduous under-
taking. As an example of private literary enterprise, it
carries us back to the days of the old Benedictines ; and
when we recollect the inauspicious years through which it
has been carried on, and the utter prostration of the country,
national, literary, social, and commercial, which it was
doomed to encounter, the perseverance, energy, and spirit
with which it has been brought to a close, command our
highest admiration. In France, in Austria, in Belgium,
in Prussia, anywhere except in Ireland, a work so purely
national as the Annals of the Four Masters, would have
been a public, and not a private undertaking.

The two massive volumes before us complete this
historical compilation, the great repository of authentic
Irish History. Mr. 0 'Donovan's original mtention com-
prehended only that portion of the Annals (since tiie
English Invasion,) the Irish text of which had not been
published by Dr. O'Connor as his Merum Hibernica-'
rum Scriptores ; and, in accordance with this view, the
Post-Invasion Annals, as our readers will recollect, were
published in three niassive quarto volumes, in the year
1848. But this publication, costly, and we take shame to
ourselves in saying, unremunerating as it was, was £Eur
from exhausting the enterprise of Mr. O 'Donovan's

{)ublishers, to whom our national literature was already so
argely indebted. Almost immediately after its appear-
ance, proposals were taken for the publication of the
earlier portion of the Annals, together with a most copious
and elaborate Index of the entire ; and notwithstanding
the many and unprecedented difficulties which the circam-
stances of the times have thrown in the way of its progress,
the success of the present undertaking has fully sustained
the high reputation of the earlier portion of the work.

The Irish text of the Ante-Invasion Annals, had been
published with a Latin translation, as is weU known, in

1851.] Notices of Books, 281

the Rerum Hidemicarum Scriptores ; and it was this

circumstance which led to Mr. O'Donovan's original inten-
tion of contenting himself with the second and unpublished
fortion of the text. But even if the exceeding variety of
)r. O'Connor's work had not rendered it all but inacces-
sible to private individuals, there were many things which
tended to make it incomplete and unsatisfactory, even as
a supplement to Mr. O'Donovan's publication. The text
is printed not in the Irish, but in the Italian character.
It 18 full of the contractions and contracted orthography of
the original MS. Many of these contractions have been
erroneouslv interpreted by the editor ; and many of his
conjectural emendations, upon other grounds, are baseless
and untenable ; and, indeed, are sometimes adopted for
the very purpose of bearing out or developing those pecu-
liar opinions upon Irish ethnology which Dr. O'Connor
is known to have entertained. And in addition to all
these motives for desiring a new edition of the text of the
Ante-English Annals, there was the capital and crown-
ing motive, that without this portion of the work, Mr.
O'Donovan's three volumes, invaluable as they are for
their own sake, could, nevertheless, only be regarded in the
light of a fragment, although the larger fragment, of the
entire.

To those who are acquainted with the volumes already
published, it would be idle to offer a word in commenda-
tion of Mr. 0 'Donovan's present performance. The same
simple accuracy of translation, the same niinute and
elaborate criticism, the same variety and copiousness of
illustration, the same wonderful familiarity with all the
sources, manuscript as well as printed, of Irish literature,
which have distinguished all the earlier works of the editor,
are discoverable in every page of the present volumes ; and,
indeed, it is easy to observe that the studies and researches
which were devoted to the earlier portion of the work have
materially facilitated the present publication, and have
contributed to impart an uniform and luminous character
to the whole.

But the addition of the copious and elaborate Index has
done more than all the rest to enhance the value of the
work, and, indeed, to change its character. Heretofore,
the Annals of the Four Masters was a mere, and, indeed,
a meagre, text-book of the events of Irish History. Mr.
O'Donovan's Index has converted it into a complete

k

282 Notices of Books tSept

cyclop»dia of Irish Historical and Archaeological Utera-
ture. There is not a subject in the entire range of Irish
Archaeology, — whether literary, historical, ethnological,
biographical, critical, genealogical, or above all, topogra-
phical, which Mr. 0 'Donovan has not, we may safely say,
exhausted in his elaborate annotations ; and the treasures
of information thus lavishly dispersed over the volumes,
are made as accessible as though they were arranged in
alphabetical order, by the two-fold index appended to the
second volume. Indeed, we do not hesitate to say, that
to the practical usefulness of the volumes already published,
this magnificent index (which extends to above eight hun-
dred columns,) is absolutely indispensable.

Of its typographical beauty and excellence it is impos-
sible to speak too highly. It is worthy of the press from
which it emanates ; and it is only necessary to add, that
in order to suit the convenience of the purchasers of the
former work, the fullest provision has been made by a
copious supply of new title pages, cancels, &c., not only
for a new arrangement of the work in seven volumes, but
also if the purchaser should desire, in the five volumes
contemplated in the original distribution.

III. — Higher Paths in Spiritual Life ; being a Retreat for Religioaa
— from the French of Pbhe Nepve:^. Translated bj one of the
Community of the Iluly Child Jesus. London : Richardson and

' Son, 1851.

It belongs not to useven to commend a work of this descrip-
tion ; — the very essence of spiritual instruction, written for
our Fathers and Masters in the Faith, by one of them-
selves. We consider with reverence the exalted spiritu-
ality of the precepts, and rejoice in this new evidence of
the holiness of the Church, and of her teaching.

IV. — Tfte Gentleman in Debt, By William O'Neill Daunt, Esq.
3 vols. 8vo. Loudon : Newbj, 1851.

" The Gentleman in Debt '* is a spirited tale of Irish
life in the latter half of the past century. The subject, in
some respects, possesses but little novelty. The social
anomalies and extravagancies of Irish life have been but
too frequently described, often with the sole view of excit-
ing the mirth, or perhaps pandering to the prejudices of
the public for whom the sketch was intended. But Mr,

185L] Notices of Booh. 983

Daunt hsLB made his tale subserve a better purpose— the
practical illustration of the social^ political, and religious
working of the penal laws in Ireland, even in the moaified
form in which we find them at that period of our history.
It is a powerful^ but we need scarcely add, b^ no means
pleasing lesson m our national history. There is not one of
the various classes in Irish society such as it then existed,
of which we do not find one or more representatives ; and
although the plot is not without some improbabilities, it is
vigorously and entirely sustained. The character of the
Rev. Julms Blake, although it may seem unnatural, is
hiurdly overdrawn ; and, unhappily, there are but too many
families whose domestic annals will present a pendant
for the sketch of the 0' Carroll. In a few generations
more these pictures and their accompaniments, will be
known but as myths in our social history.

y. — A Shoii Catechism of English History^ Ecclesiastical and
Cioilt for Children ; by the Rev. T. Flanagan. London :
Richardson and Son.

An excellent abridgement of the leading facts of Eng-
lish History. Clear, truthful, and Catholic views are
given upon each point, in a style likely to interest a Child's
curiosity to search further.

VI. — The Irish Land Question, With Practical Plans for an Improv-
ed Land Tenure, and a new Land System. By Vincent Scully,
Esq., Q C. Dublin : Hodges and Smith, 185L

If the complicated difficulties y^hich beset this most em-
barrassing question are to be dealt with as literary or legal
{problems at all, it is in the spirit and tone of this able pub-
ication. Mr. Scully. like almost all who have read orthought
deeplv upon the subject, has felt the necessity of doing
soni^hing more than pointing out and denouncing the
evils of the present system. In every revolution, no matter
what its character, whether social, political, or religious,
there are two phases, the destructive and the re-construc-
tive ; and the fatal experience of almost all such changes
has taught the danger of entering upon the first without
having calmly and dispassionately calculated the resources
and the capacity which we possess for the second. Mr.
Scully's essay mainly addresses itself to this important
view of the Laud Question. It is learned, able, calm, and

284 Notices of Books. ' [Sept

dispassionate. The details of his plan are too comprehen-
sive for examination here ; but although it may not be
complete in every particular, and, probably, will fail fully to
satisfy either of the two great interests between which it
proposes to mediate, yet it is unquestionably deserving of
the careful and favourable consideration of both. We
cannot but regard it as a happy and auspicious omen, that
such men and in such a spirit have begun to address them-
selves seriously to the practical examination of tibe
subject.

VII. — Treatise of Pope Benedict XIV., on Eeroic Viriue. VoL 2.
London, Dublin, and Derby, Richardson and Son, 1851.

The Fathers of the Oratory, as our readers know, are
still engaged in the good work of bringing out their series
of " the Saints and Servants of God,*' a biography of
those devout men and women whose names Hoyr Church
has formally canonized. The treatise which we have
mentioned above is not, strictly speaking, a biography —
but still it is a most valuable adjunct to the lives which have
appeared: giving as it were the key note of the whole
biographical series, and explaining the principle on which
the formal process of canonization takes place in the
Catholic Church. It is a portion of the well known stand-
ard work of Pope Benedict XIV. on canonization. One
volume has already appeared, and a second we now cordi-
ally welcome. Protestants in general, and perhaps even
not a few Catholics, are little acquainted with the diligent
and searching process to which every name is subjected at
Home before it can be beatified or canonized. It is enough
to say here, that no man or woman, however holy, can be
enrolled among the Saints of God, except after death his
or her name has first passed through two separate stages of
examination, distinct in point of time. There is at flbme
a regular Court, called the Sacred Congregation of Bites, in
which the character and deeds of all such individuals are
strictly canvassed ; and where it is necessary to establish, by
most indisputable proofs, that the departed has worked certain
miracles, and has habitually shown forth in his own per-
son, the heroic or supernatural life. This enquiry is nbt
confined to the question as to whether he has exhibit^ the
theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, and the
cardinal virtues also in an heroic degree, but it enters

1851.] Notices of Books. 285

most minutely into the details of his life and death. The
first of the two volumes of Pope Benedict is mainly occupied
with the definition of heroic virtue, and with the
theological and cardinal virtues, and ^ furnishes tests
whereBy the existence of these virtues in each individual
must be judged : the second, to which our present remarks
are more especially intended to refer, is more confined to
details. The matters of which it treats are, first, '^ the
trials and tribulations of the servants of Oody which are
to be enquired into when the causes of their beatification
and canonization are under discussion ;*' and afterwards
it speaks of the matters to be specially observed in the
causes of those who severally have been Popes, or Car-
dinals, Bishops, Ecclesiastics, or ordinary laymen, virgins,
married persons, or widows. In each case our readers
should know that these separate questions have to be enter-
tained, sifted, and decided, by the ^ consultors of the
congregation,'' and by the officer at their head, who is called
the" Promoter of the Faith,'* before the sentence can be
finally delivered, and the name submitted in solemn Con-
sistory or Council of the Cardinals, to His Holiness,
as the Vicar of Christ, for Beatification or Canonization,
as the case may be. To state the lowest ground, a general
acquaintance with such facts as these is necessary in order
to silence the objections of Protestants, accustomed as
they are to exclaim against the saints of old, as men who
lived holy lives indeed, but who, if they difiered from their
neighbours at all, difiered only in degree. And the peru-
sal of this admirable treatise will tend to satisfy such
persons, we trust, that no one has been or can be canonized
m the Church, without having actually earned his reward
as a true servant of God, by living a supernatural life with
the aid of supernatural grace. - But in a higher way the
book will be of far greater use to the pious Catholic, as
funiishing him with a theoretic standard of action, at
which he ought constantly to be aiming ; and supplying at
the same time a vast amount of instruction as to the gifts
and graces which actually have been realized by such

Seat names as those of St. Benedict, St. Theresa, St.
alachv, and manv other of the Saints and Servants of
God. VVe can fully promise that the whole work (to use
Ae words of the advertisement prefixed), "will be found
replete with most interesting anecdotes concerning the
Lives of the Saints, as well as of immense use to spiritual

286 Notices of Books. [Sept.

directors, and to all students of ascetical theology, or
Christian philosophy/' A third volume will conclude the
work.

We avail ourselves of this occasion to notice the publi-
cation of a biography of Father Gentili, of whicn we
propose to publish a lengthened notice in our January
number.

VIII.— TAtf Order of Laying the First Stone of a New C^nrek,
according to the Romau Pontifical. London : Bums and
Lambert.

As this service is not included in ordinary prayer books,
this pamphlet, which might be bound up with them, or
separately , will be found of great and happily of frequent
utility. We are glad to see the beautiful services of the
Church as much as possible brought into common use,

IX. — Address of His Eminence (he late Cardinal Archbishop of
Cambrai, on Domestic Education, London : Eicbardson and Son.

These four lectures, forming a series, have all the per-
suasive and apostolic dignity that belong to French
preaching. The venerable Archbishop addresses a diffi?p-
ent society from our own ; but who will read his awful
reproofs and not feel compelled to ask in how far they
come home to ourselves ? Were we to judge from our own
observation, we should say that England would rank high
in respect to the care paid to her children, amongst a large
class at least ; but as to the nation at large, who can tell
what evils exist ? Who can deny one symptom at leaist,
which the Archbishop with profound observation, considera
as denoting a growing evil in society ? We will give his
own words.

''Why tbe private or public schools, always multiplying/ infant
schools, schools for youth, adult schools, day schools, evening sohoolst
Sunday schools ? Why these halls of refuge opened in every part
for the culture of the infantine age, even to the asylums destined to
receive the newly-born ? Wherefore, in fine, all this eagerness, all
these precautions, all these, until latelv, unknown institutions?
Eternal honour to the healthy part of society ; as it is the eternal
opprobium of the other. Is this only progress, amelioration, im-
provement, as folks are pleased to say ? No : it is a necessary
satisfaction, given to a profound want of our age ; it is an aocnsing
remedy of the evil which is active amongst us. Do you not

1 85 1 .] Notices of Books. 287

that the characters are changed and inverted, that it is in the
family that sooietj is to draw its strength ; hut, on the contrarj, it
is here that society comes and supplies the family ? If Domestic
education was that which it ought to be, would it ever have beeu
Decessar J to substitute adoption for a maternal sentiment ? A cen*
tury ago, who would ever have thought of creating asylums to
teach little children the elements of religion and morality, of found-
ing institutions where they may find the nourishmeut and care
suitable to their age ? No : and why ? Because, then, families
were Christian. There were, doubtless, schools to perfect and
complete educations but the first of schools was the paternal
liome. In these new acts of charitable assistance, we ought to
bless, a thousand times, the generous souls that conceiyed and
realized tlie thought ; but there is also, for an observing mind, a
frightful revelation of the sad decline of our morals/'

X. — Westminster- Memorials of the City, St, Peter s College^ ths
Parish Churches^ Palaces, Streets, and Worthies. By the Rev.
Mackenzie £. C. Walcott, M. A. Westminster : Masters,
1849.

We have looked through this book with great entertain-
ment ; It is not the mere compilation of an antiquary, but
the work of a gentlemanly scholar who has entered with
thorough interest into his subject: not free from bias,
certainly, upon religious subjects ; — that was hardly to have
been expected ; but not unkind or bigoted. Of course
there is much contained in the work which will not be new
to readers upon this subject ; but the author has used too
much research not to have added a great deal of valuable
matter to what has been already collected.

Til,'— The Tradition of the Apostles concerning Gifts; by Saint
HippoLYfus, Bishop and Martyr. London : Richardson and Son.

We are not told who is the author of this bold attempt
to popularize the works of the primitive Fathers ; nor do
we^ know whether this is an isolated instance, or if any
series of such translations is intended ; we can therefore
only speak of what is before us, and avow that we have
found great gratification in St. Hippolytus* vigorous sermon
oil the Epiphany, given to us in such racy English, as
plight have been original, and in the direct ana simple
injunctions of the Apostolic Constitutions. With these
few words we must dismiss a publication, which, neverthe-
less, appears to us to deserve a more authoritative and
serious notice.

28S Notices of Books. [Sept .

XII, — Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages, By T. Hudsox
Turner. Londoa : J. H. Parker.

We feel that this book deserves at our hands a more
extended notice than our columns at present will conve-
niently admit. It is a very attractive volume in outward
appearance, and enriched with a variety of well-chosen
engravings, which are admirably adapted to the end of
illustrating the matter of the work. But it is not merely
as a book for the boudoir or drawing-room table that we
would recommend it to our readers; it has far higher
claims upon their attention, as embracing a very wide
range of most interesting facts connected with mediaeval
architecture as applied to domestic purposes. The subject
is one which at present has been little investigated among
us, and on which, therefore, the public mind has not been
generally interested ; and hence, while Oxford and Cam-
bridge have poured forth in great variety their contribu-
tions to the systematic study of Gothic architecture, as
applied to ecclesiastical buildings, — to say nothing of
lesser elementary works from Messrs. Markland, Bloxam,
and others, — the domestic architecture of the Middle
Ages has remained, for the most part, a waste and unex-
plored region. It is, therefore, with feelings of much
satisfaction that we hail this almost the first attempt to
grapple with the subject. And yet we would not be under-
stood to imply that we consider the subject in anj wav
exhausted, as yet at least, by Mr. Tunier. Like all
other authors who venture on an untrodden path, and
chalk out a new line for themselves, Mr. Turner has beea
of necessity obliged to confine himself to an extensive col-
lection of facts and details, which he has classified together
in order of time, though he has not studied to reduce
them into any very systematic shape, or to build on them
a superstructure of theory. We think that he has acted
wisely in confining himself at present to this portion of his
subject ; but we hope, that as time goes on, and a wider
induction of particular instances supplies him with a store
of additional materials, the talented author will go on to
gather from them some general rules and principles, which,
though they may not be directly useful to architects of the
present day, will give the general reader a more complete
msight into the habits and customs of oiu* forefathers than
he has hitherto acquired.

185 1.1 Notices of Books. 289

In writing thus, we must by no means be understood as
in any way finding serious fault with the book of which we
are speaking. It opens a new field of enquiry, and, as
such, the author must be content to feel that his researches
will bear to be further carried out and more completely
systematized hereafter. There is indeed one point on
which we should be almost disposed to quarrel with our
author, were we not aware how closely the domestic and
ecclesiastic life, and, by consequence, the corresponding
styles of building, were mterwoven in " the ages of faith ;
and this is, that not having drawn very accurate limits
around his subject, he has been led to introduce into the
body of his work a quantity of extraneous matter, which,
while we freely admit that it is most interesting to the
antiquarian, at the same time seems to us calculated to
overload and almost to perplex the general reader. The
magnificent abbeys and priories, the palaces and deaneries,
together with the hostelries and castles of " old England,"
are so closely connected with " Church architecture,'' pro-

Eerly so called, that we feel how difficult our author must
ave found it to draw an exact line where domestic archi-
tecture commences. But upon the whole, Mr. Turner has
dealt, we think, very judiciously with this inherent diffi-
culty of his subject ; and we are bound to confess that the
lesser defects which we have ventured to point out are far
outweighed by the intrinsic merits of the work itself.

We think that from the illustrations chosen we are
led to infer, that Mr. Turner has confined his researches to
some special districts of Great Britain almost to the exclu-
sion of others ; and the '* Guardian,'' with some show of
justice, complains that many beautiful specimens of domes-
tic architecture, with which the principality of Wales
abounds, have been entirely overlooked. We think we
may fairly express our regret, that, while several French
specimens of domestic architecture are added in an
appendix, such noble structures as Chepstow and Caerphil-
ly castles, and especially the ancient Episcopal Palace,
which still stands in roofless and desolate grandeur at St.
David's, have been passed by in silence. We hope that
this defect will be remedied in a future edition. Some de-
tails of several ancient residences, such as Ightham Moat
and Hever castle, both in Kent, with Jjartington in
Devon, Layer Marney in Essex, and Berkeley Castle,

VOL. XXXI.— No. LXI, 19

290 Notices of Books. [Sept.

would, we suggest, be profitably added in a future edition.
From what we have said, our readers will have gathered
that Mr. Turner's book is by no means a superficial work,
but worthy of the attention of any antiquarian, who wishes
to become acquainted with tne outlines of medieval
domestic architecture in England. It would be useless
affectation, in these days of advancement in all that bears
upon our personal comfort and luxury, to think of retnming
to the middle ages for models on which to build our town
or country houses ; and, therefore, the utility of thb
branch of study becomes naturally less direct and imme-
diate, than that of the sister branch of ecclesiastical
architecture, where the same arrangements now, as then,
are suited to the unchanging and unchangeable character of
Christian worship, and where everything is made to Bub~
serve the one great end of the Christian sacrifice. To go
back to antiquity in the one case, is as censurable, we
feel, as it would be in the other to deviate unnecessarily
from ancient models.

Hence, too, it will follow, that the^ study of domestic
architecture has not a chance of engaging the attention of
English readers at all, in the same degree that " Ghurdi
architecture ^' has recently done ; for the latter is the step-
ping stone to " Church restoration,'* while the former can-
not lay claim to any direct practical results. And yet the
subject is worthy the attention of Catholics, (and may we
not add, of Protestants also ?) for particular reasons. The
popular notion of the present day, as to the relative gran-
deur and magnificence of Churches and private dwellings,
to say the least, reflects but little credit upon our reliffioos
feelings. On this head, as on many others, we feel that a
healthy result may be attained by those who will be at the
pains to throw themselves back into the annals of bye^gone
times, and to ascertain what was thought by our Catholic
forefathers, during what men so complacently call ** the
dark ages,'* upon the subject of domestic architecture.
From Mr. Turner's book the very least we may gather liB
a lesson on this head. We there find that that nobles, and
even kings, in this very island of our own, were once con-
tent to dwell in. a really mean and sordid style, at the Veiy
time when every ornament of colour and form was lavished
upon the ecclesiastical edifices under whose shelter thqr
lived. Thus the house of a nobleman of the twelfth or
thirteenth centuries, if we may trust Mr. Turner, con-

1851 .] Notices of Books. 29 1

tained besides its hall and chapel, often but a single cham-
ber, and the necessary offices. And here, too, is a second
lesson. The great halls which still remain in some of
those ancient structures, strike us as built upon a very
gigantic scale, compared with the rest of the edifice. But
we must remember that in those days an English noble-
man's family consisted not merely of his children, but of
his dependants and servants, and that night and day the
great hall was the apartment in which they all lived
together, as a family. Did space permit us, we might
easily enlarge upon the cause of this practice, and show that
it was the result of a great truth, which was then undoubt-
ingly received and believed, namely, the reality of the
sacred tie which binds in one family the members of
Christ, high or low, rich or poor. Men then believed
that they were " one body in Christ, and all of them mem-
bers one of another.'' And as they believed they acted.
But we feel that we are wandering from our subject, and
that our remarks are almost bordering upon a religious
lecture; so we will content ourselves with taking our leave
of Mr. Turner and his work for the present, once more
strongly recommending it to the perusal of our readers,
who, we feel sure, on the whole, will find uppn e3(perienc*e
that their labour bestowed upon it has not been thrown
away.

Xm — The ChUd^s Month of Mary; with the approbation of His
'Eminenoe Cardinal Wisemaa, London : Richardson and Son.

The title of this little work will recommend it. The
object is to render the devotion of the month of Mary,
practical amongst children and in families. It is upon the
aame plan as the devotions already in use, and the instruo-
tions and examples are simple, pious, and in excellent
taste.

XTV. — The New Penal Law^ considered in its bearing upon
Scotland ; or Two Letters addressed to the Right Hon. the
Eatl of Arundel and Surrey. By the Right Rev. Bishop

0.UXX8.

England and Ireland have raised their loud protest
against the Penal Law with which we are afflicted.
Bishop Gillis speaks for Scotland, and shews the injury
it will work to the Church there, unoffending, unobtrusive
as she has been. We should earnestly wish this pamphlet

292 Notices of Books. LSept

ill the hands of our legislators, if we had any hope from
their justice ; or, indeed, in anything save the direct inter-
position of Providence for our relief.

XV. — The Doctrine of the Cross; with various Reflections on the
Passion ; the dignity of the Blessed Virgin ; the end of man ;
the Religious State ; and the Priesthood ; with instruction and
consolation under Temptation, &c. London: Richardson and
Son.

The author of this book, who has not given his name,
calls it a compilation. It is, indeed, thickly interspersed
with extracts from the Holy Fathers and the Scriptures,
which are interwoven with his own comments, which form
admirable and aflFecting meditations. We have seen few
works which convey in a manner so unpretending, so
much excitement to devotion.

XVI. — F(Mti Christiani ; or Rhymes on the Calendar. In six books.
By W. C. AuousTiNE Maclaurin (Late Dean of Moray and Ross),
now a member of the Catholic Church. 870. London ; Dol-

I man, 1851.

The Fasti Christiani is intended as a help to those who
desire to accommodate their private devotions to the
spirit of the Church in her public and solemn services.
It is an attempt to condense into a concise poetical fonh,
the substance of the mysteries, and of the histories of the
saints which are celebrated throughout the Ecclesiastical
year.

On the average, about four Elegiac stanzas are devoted
to each day, but in some few instances, a slight deviation
from this rule may be observed. The plan is one which,
as may be easily supposed, allows but little opportunity
for the display of the hghter graces of poetical compo-
sition ; but there is a deep religious tone pervading its
homely and solemn verses, which cannot fail to toudi
and to elevate the Christian heart.

We cannot better describe at once the object of the
work and the general character of its execution, than
by transcribing its closing lines.

** 0 that in the path
Of Saints we walked ; ourselves renouncing quite,
Crucified to the world, of tenderness
For others full, eager the gospeFs light

185 1 .] Noticetf of Books. 293

To infidels to give, aad thus to bless

Mankind with truth, or in its cause to die !

No miracles or keen austerities

Such course can equal ; nor would nations lie

Long in the shades of death, if verities

Were thus maintained, and the baptized were one.

Saviour divine, who praj'dst that this might be.

And saidst the world would then believe, be done

Thj most benevolent will ! Nor spurn from Thee

This poor attempt the waj of sanctity

In rhjmes to show !

'* Reader ! thj prayers I crave
To Him who died on the Redeeming Tree
Mj soul from everlasting death to save.*'

There are few, we think, who will not echo from then*
hearts this modest and touching prayer.

XVII. — The Life of St. Camillas of Lellis. Founder of the Clerks
Regular, Ministers of the Sick. To which is added, Memoirs of
the Ven. Ludovico Da Ponte, S. J. ; and. Memoirs of the Ven.
Luigi La Nuza, S. J. Loudon : Richardson and Son.

^ ^ We are more and more struck by the value of the prodi-

S'ous work undertaken by the Oratorians, and carried
rough with an energy, which, considering their other
labours is truly astonishing. The two venerable saints
whose memoirs are here given, were born in 1554, and
1591. They have not been canonized, and it is possile
they never may; and thus, but for the preservation of
these authentic memoirs, we should have lost the edifica-
tion which is now opened to us in them.
• It is evident that these memoirs were, for the most part,
written by contemporaries, or by those who lived near the
time of these servants of God. There is a something of
life-like biography in them ; we feel inspired with more
tender devotion to those who thus become personally known
to us in all the loveliness, as well as the majesty of their
supernatural virtue. Of all the Catholic works now pub-
lisned, there are none, we think, so devotional as these.

XVIIL — The Olory of Mary^ in conformity with the word of God.
By James Augustinb Stothert, Missionary Apostolic m the
Eastern District of Scotland. Dolman : London.

We have been much pleased with this little work, which
appears to us to be of a description very much wanted. It

294 Notices of Books, [Sept.

i« addressed to Protestants, perhaps not of the most
imaginative description : and to meet their coldness and
prejudice, the Reverend Author has been at the greatest
pains to draw up from probability, history, and scripture,
such a chain of ar^rument as mnst be almost irresistible ;
and he has done this with a tenderness and depth of feel-
ing most congenial to the Catholic heart.

XIX. — The Visum of Old Andrew the Weaner, London : Richardson

and Son.

One of the most poetical and beautiful stories that we
have read, and one which , if not already known to our
readers, we can warmly recommend.

XX. — Was 8t, Peter ever at Rome $ The scbstance ^ iwt> Leetnrss
delivered in St. John's Church, Perth, by Rkv. J. S. M'Corry,
M. Ap. London : Dolman, 185 h

We recommend these two lectures to all who have ever
entertained a doubt upon the momentous point they estab-
lish. Catholics are not likely to have troubled themselves
concerning a fact^ long laid up in their minds, amongst the
treasures of their faitn, beyond the reach of speculation.
But Protestants, who may have been perplexed by the
arguments lately brought forward, will be glad to see the
faith of the great^ majority of Christendom, and the
opinion of the remaining portion of it, so well justified.

XXL — Regeneration, or Divine and Human Ifature ; a Poem hi
six books. By George Marstand. London : Pickering, 1850.

Any thing more crude in thought and style than this
production — we cannot call it a poem — ^it has seldom been
our lot to meet with. It is difficult to read, impossible to
understand. Did the author understand his own meaning ?
he tells us ** he desired to produce a work that mi^ht be
thought worthy to be oflFered up by the High Pnest of
error, as a propitiation to Satan. With Satan we desire
to have nothing to do, in the way of '* oflferings'* or other*
wise. But to such a harmless, fictitious i)ersonage as die
High Priest of rigmarole, we should have no objection
to present this book.

1851.] Notices of Books. 295

XXII. — A compUle description of St, George* s Cathedral ; and Rand^
book to the Catholic Antiquities of Soulhwark, With Twelve
Engravings. London, Dublin, and Derbj : Richardson and Son.

St. George's is, we believe, the first Church really
worthy of the name which was built in the Metropolis
since the Reformation ; the most complete, if not the first
revival of Gothic architecture in England ; nor are these
the only circumstances which make its erection an epoch
to Catholics : we would not speak of the apparently insuffi-
cient means with which it was began, the difficulties it
had to encounter, or the zeal that triumphed over them all ;
these are common to all Catholic Churches : but the singu-
lar coincidence of the site on which it stands, its close con-
nection with the first Archbishop of our new Hierarchy,
the solemn manifestation of Catholic communion and
sympathy given in the presence, at its dedication, of so
many foreignprelates, and the interest taken in the event
by our Holy Father the Pope, who presented to it a chalice
of his own particular kindness — all these circumstances
are peculiar ; and render St. George's remarkable beyond
any Church now in England, perhaps more so than an.v,
however splendid, which may be built hereafter. It is
right, therefore, that there should be a good description of
toe Church and of the principal personages and facts con-
nected with it, and such a one we have in this elegant
little work. The description is complete and accurate,
and the enffravings good, and so numerous as to give an
idea not only of the general effect of the building, but of
the peculiarly beautiful embellishments for which Mr.
Pugin is justly celebrated.

XXIII. — The Mission of Sympathy, a Poem in Four Cantos. By
William S. Villibrs San key, M.A London : Pickering, 1850.

There is something in this poem which reminds us of
older favourites ; occasionally of Cowper ; the versifica-
tion is elegant and easy ; a pleasing vehicle for a train
of thought which we follow with pleasure; refined, dis-
cursive, and nicely discriminative. The illustrations of
the subject are well chosen, and so as agreeably to diver-
sify a 'didactic poem.

XXrV. — Poems Legendary and Historical, by Edwaed A. Freeman,
M.A., and the Rev. George W. Cox, S.C.L. London : Long-
man, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1850.

This book has afforded us great pleasure. Glorious

296 Notices of Books. [Sept.

old stories of classic and romantic times, are here
given us in choice English verse, simple, strong, and
spirit-stirring. The writers are men who have studied
poetry at the fountain head, and they have poetry in
them ; in the " recollections of childhood'* are passages
of exquisite pathos and descriptive beauty ; but we pre-
fer upon the whole the '* Legends,*' which have all the
terse simplicity and power of the old English ballads.

XXV. — The Lives of Father Antonio Talpa, the Ven. Father Eustachio,
and Father Giamhaltista Frever. London, Dublin, and Derby :
Richardson and Son.

These venerable men were all disciples of St. Philip
Neri, members of the congregations of the Oratories of
Naples and Turin: and their lives preserved in the
aflFectionate records, almost in the memories, of their
brethren, are recounted with singular vivacity and unction.
We see continually more cause to be thankful for this
great undertaking of the Fathers of the Oratory : without
which we should have lost the treasures of edification,
contained in the lives of these uncanonized, but most
illustrious saints.

XXVI. — Spicilegium Solemiense compledens 8. 8, quorumdam Patrum
auctorumque Fcclestasticorum^ qui a prima inde sasctdo ad duoded^
mum usque Jloruere, anecdota hacienus opera, publid juris facia
curante Domno J. B. Pibra, O. S. B., monacho, e congregatione
Gallica, nonnuUis ex Abbatia Solesmensi opem conferentibns.
Tomus I.

We have already recommended the work of which this is a
first volume, to the notice and the support of all those who
aspire to possess a theological library. ^ When really learned
men, like Dom, Fibra, give up their time and an amount of
labour and attention which very few can estimate, to collect
from a great number of scattered sources the smallest
remains of Christian antiquity yet inedited, the least which
those who live upon the labours and sell-denying zeal of
others can do is to purchase their works. No Uhristian
scholar, indeed, is there but must feel a deep debt of

fratitude due from him to the monks of the Order of S.
(enedict in France. Besides those matchless editions of
the greater ancient Fathers which it was the labour of
their lives to put forth, there are no less than six volumi-

1851.] Notices of Books. 297

nous collections of snialler authors made by them. First,
there is the Spicilegium of D'Achery, then the. Analecta
of Mabillon, the Anecdota Grseca of Montfaucon, the
Thesaurus Anecdotorum of Dom. Martene, the Amplis-
sima CoUectio Monuraentorum by Dom. Durand, and,
lastly, the Thesaurus Anecdotorum Novissimus, by Dom.
Bernard Fez. In our own times, the very learned Cardinal
Mai has added a vast collection of incalculable value : and
now Dom. Fibra comes forward to glean whatever ears
remain of that golden harvest. He proposes to publish
ten volumes containing fragments or works of more
than one hundred and fifty authors, partially or totally
inedited, and ranging from the first to the twelfth century.
In the first volume, besides fragments of S. Fapias, S.
TrenaBus, and S. Dionysius of Alexandria, we notice no
less than seventy pages of the writings of S. Hilary of
Poitiers recovered. Collections of this sort deserve every
possible encouragement, for it is impossible to say how
valuable may be the yet undiscovered remains of antiquity
lying hid in manuscript. This volume contains important
fragments of the Council of Nice, illustrated by M.
Lenormant. Had the heresiarchs of the sixteenth century
been acquainted with the eastern liturgies, and known
their unimpeachable antiquity, it is possible we might
have been spared their blasphemous ravings against the
Christian sacrifice, and the hideous apostacy which denies
it. It is but a very small portion of the vast living tradi-
tion of the Christian Church which has come down to us
in writing. It is difficult to prove to the unbeliever much
of what we cherish in our inmost heart, because so many
records have perished, and so much which was a matter of
every day practice, was never recorded. But let us not at
least neglect whatever can yet be recovered. For this
reason, we bid God's speed to Dom. Fibra's new Spici-
legium. It is printed in imperial octavo, at the very low
pnce of ten francs a volume, and divided into two series,
the first five containing the authors down to the tenth
century, and the latter five the remainder. Either series
may be subscribed for. We can speak of the Latin type
and of the general execution of the volume in terms of
warm approval. For all that the zeal and learning of an
Editor can contribute to such a work, Dom. Fibra's name
will be an ample guarantee to all who have the good
fortune to know him.

298 Notice of Books. [Sept

XXVU.—The Conversion of a Protestani Family. Translated frona
the Frencbi bj V. M. London : Richardson and S(HL

The naif foreign style, and unpretending form of this
little work, convey a most remarkable story. All con-
versions are wonderful ; when the secrets of each heart aro
laid bare, perhaps no miracles will be found to have sur-
passed them ; out those of which the narrative is here
given, and which occurred in the little town of Quimper,
seem to have been more than usually marked out hy the
finger of God himself, as evidences of that power which —
sustaining the weak, humbling the strong-- is in all cases
equally omnipotent and irresistible.

XXVIII. — Manual of the Anatomy and Phytiolopy of ihe Humoa^iiigid,
By the Ret. Jambs Carlile, D. D., of Dubhn and Parsonstown^
Ireland. London : Hall, Virtue, and Co., I85I.

This work appears to us to be one of too much impor-
tance, to be noticed in so hasty a manner as want of time
imposes on us. We can only say that a most impor-
tant subject appears to have been treated with great
research, and depth of thought.

XXIX. — FamUiar Sketches of Catholic Life, in a series of letters froiQ
a foreign Catholic to an English Protestant. 1st Series. London :
Bums and Lambert, 1851.

We believe it was in the Catholic Weekly Instructor
that these delightful letters, or most of them, first appeared.
They were much admired then, and we are sure that our
yeaders will be delighted to find them collected, and^ we
believe, with considerable additions. Whoever has taken
pleasure in reading Miss Mitford's descriptions of '* Our
Village,'* will have^ an idea of our authoress' style of
writing and observation, and will understand how faitmuUy
it would render the picturesque tranquillity of a Belgian
village, seen in the aspect least familiar to travellers, of
unexcited industrious routine; seen by an Englishwoman,
to whom its peculiarities were fresh, — by a Catholic, who
had the clue to the secret life of its inhabitants, and could

Sarticipate in it. And what a lovely picture does she
raw of Catholicism thus left to itself Not disturbed by
controversy, or warped aside by Protestant feelings ^ and
usages. That fence of daily habits so simple, piotis.

185 1. J Notices oj Books. 299

regular, the tone of innocence, tJie constant memory of
another world ! The pupils of this system seem placed,
with scarce an eflFort of their own, upon a high vantage-
ground on the road to heaven. These letters are written
to old friends and dependants in England ; and explana-
tions of the Catholic religion are free^^ intermingled, while
its effect iipon the feelings and the life are practically illus-
trated. We know few more agreeable or more generally
useful volumes.

XXX. — The Clifton Tracts: — Protestantism weighed in its own
Balance and foond Wanting.— The Bible and the Bible only. —
Queen Mary and her People— the Smith field fires. — Benediction
of the Most Holy Sacrament — What Catholics do when the
Candles are lighted.* Our Parish Churches, as they were and as
tkey are. — Old Stones tell tales. — The Church a Kingdom. — Holy
Week. — Palm Sunday, or the Procession. — Holy Week, Maundy
Thursday, or the Holy Sepulchre. — Holy Weel^ — Good Friday
or the Adoration of the Cross. — Monks and Nuns, Counsels of per-
fection.— How the Pope became a King. By permission ; Lon-
don : Bums and Lambert. Bristol : Reader, Park Street.

These little tracts form part of a library of popular con-
troversy now publishing by. the Brothers of the Society
of St. Vincent de Paul ; the price is so low and the
matter so excellent, that we have no doubt of their
doing incalculable good. There is something in the tone
of these little essays, firm, cheerful, tangible — ^most oppo-
site to the morbid gloomy excitement of the methodist
tracts which have so long circulated amongst the intelli*

Sent of our poor, giving *' the ^errors" as we are told by
fr. May hew, to such as were entrapped into reading them»
Most opposite too, will be their effect if they should get
into a wiae circulation — an event to be greatly desired and
promoted. In our next number we purpose to treat the
subject at considerable length.

XXXL — The Whigs fiersus the Pope. The Case of the Day, reported
by an old Whig. London : Blackwood and Sons, 1851.

The author ar^es powerfully for the inherent right of
men to hold their own religious opinions, — that being a
point .never conceded in the social compact; from this
general right to toleration of opinion, he proceeds to argue
for the special grounds on which Catholics might claim
this right. After a scornful glance at the various mad*

300 Notices of Books. [Sept

nesses which from time to time have taken possession of
the public mind, producing the usual eflFects of all such
unnatural and fierce excitement, feebleness or re-action —
evil deeds and their consequent remorse ; he proceeds
to show that tiiey are as mad now in their rant of *' No
Popery/'

Condensing with much spirit the principal arguments
that have been so ably urged in Parliament, to show the
nature of the Act which has raised such bitter hostility iu
the Church by ^' law established,'* he proceeds to charac-
terize the measures taken against it. ^\ Masses of lords,
squires, and yeomen, allow that a noxious heresy taints
the body of the Church of England. It is a Church incor-
porated with the State, and, therefore, the fitting object of
State reformation. If the disease be admitted, why is not
the remedy applied ? If a Church can be constituted by
Act of Parliament, it surely, through the same medium
could be purified and amended. Why then assail another
Church, mdependent of the State, pursuing its own objects
in its own way, and in accordance with its doctrines and
its discipline ?'* But *' Popery is unendowed, and hence
may be a fitting object of persecution ; Puseyism is power-
ful, or linked to those who are, and cannot be touched/'

XXXII.— 2%<j following 'of Christ ; in Four Books. A New Trans-
lation. London : Burns and Lambert.

We know not the author of this new translation of the
Imitation, but its merits cannot be doubted, since it has
obtained the sanction of the highest authority, not only in
ecclesiastical matters, but in scholarship and tasto—
Cardinal Wiseman. The book is got up in a manner
worthy the high pre-eminence it holds in every Catholic
library. The engravings by which it is iUustmted are
charming, the type good, the embellishments highly finished,
and in that excellent taste for which these publishers are
so remarkable.

XXXIII. — Proceedings of the Kilkenny Arckeological Society. Vol.
L, Part 2. Dublin: O'Dalej, 1851.

The formation of local societies like that to which the
above most interesting publication, is one of the best
evidences of the hold which the pursuit of our National
Archaeology has begun to take on the public mind. The

1 85 1 . ] Notices of Books. SO I

mere act of membership of one of the two general
societies — the Archseological and the Celtic— (the working
of which falls chiefly on a few individuals,) in itself need
imply but little practical interest in the subject. There
are numberless details which the activity of auxiliary
societies alone can effectively carry out ; especially those
connected with the special antiquities of each locality.

Of the zeal and activity of the Kilkenny Society, it is
impossible to speak too favourably. The part of their pro-
ceedings now before us completes the first volume of tneir
publications, and affords a most gratifying omen of their
future success. It comprises a great variety of interesting
papers, profusely and pleasingly illustrated — read at the
several meetings of the Society; some of them on subjects
connected with the general antiquities of the country, but
the greater number, and by far the more attractive,
regarding the immediate locality.

Among the latter, we would specify particularly, that on
the^ *' way-side crosses of Kilkenny,'* which is full of most
curious and interesting matter ; and of the former, the
paper on " Stained Glass in Ireland '* deserves the highest
commendation. It is learned, tasteful, and what is best of
all, practical in a high degree.

We shall only add our usual and anxious hope, that the
Kilkenny Archseological Society may prove the fore-
runner and the type of many such bodies in all the
important cities and towns of the kingdom. Certainly the
evidence which it has given of the good which may be
effected with very limited resources, should be at once
an example and an encouragement, even to the least
enterprising.

XXXIV. — Tlie E migrants f and the Affectionate Son, London : Rich-
ardson and Son.

Two simple pretty little stories.

XXXV. — Legends of the Commandments of God, By. J. Collin db
Planct. Translated from the French. London : Dolman, 1851.

The idea of this work is excellent. The legends are not
imaginary narratives ; they are all founded on historv ;
the dates are accurate, the characters real ; and where the
author introduces a tale, he presents it as such, contribu-
iing, as he tells us himself, ''only the colouring, the

302 Notices of Books, [Sept.

arrangement^ and the details of the narrative.*' And this
he has done well ; the accessories are in good keeping, and
the whole forms an interesting collection of the lore of the
middle ages ; bold in its features, picturesque in its details,
highly edifying -in the moral drawn, and the instances
given of God s dealings with men in those " ages of
faith."

^XXYl.^-Legends of ike Seven Capital Sins. By J. Golun db Plasct.
Dolman : Loadon.

This work is a continuation of the series, and has
quite as great merit as its predecessor. The idea is
a curious one, and it is well earned out, to shew the
consequences, even in this world, of daring violations of
the Commandments of God, whether in thought or
action. The instances given are historical; told with
the graphic simplicity of an old romance, and proving the
truth of the old saying that, truth is more wonderful than
fiction. The Archbishop of Paris has given his sanction
to the morality of these legends, and we are sure they will
be a welcome acquisition to all young people. The public
are obliged to tne translator who has made them more
generally known ; but it cannot be denied that the task of
rendering them into English, has not been well fulfilled.
The translator falls into such blunders, as translating
" sac '* into *' sack," and, in general, adheres so entirely
to the French idiom, as greatly to spoil the narrative to an
English reader.

XXXVII. — The Holy Scriptures ; their Origin, ProgresB, Trmnsmis-
sion, Corruptions, and True Character. Dolman : Loadon, 18S0.

As there is no point upon which Protestants are more
unconvincable than in the mistaken idea they entertain of
the proper object and intention of the Holy Scriptures ; so
there is no one point of controversy upon which Catholics
require to be so well informed, or so fluent. There is a
parade of sanctity — of respect for God*s word, which our
adversaries assume upon this subject, and which is some-
times very embarrassmg. It is not easy to treat arguments
with as little ceremony as they deserve, when Uiey ane
brought against you in the form of texts of Scripture,
however little they may be to the purpose. And, more-
over. Catholics are too apt to be silenced by a conscious-
ness that upon this point they are ignorant : afraid from a

1851.] Notices of Books. 303

Mnne of reTeren(!6 to meet their opponents with the same
weapons^ and Isometimes unable to do so with effect, because
they are m the habit of reading such portions only of Scrip-
ture as can be used for devotion. To persons who have
felt this, we recommend this little work ; — it fulfils ad-
mirably what it undertakes, and contains not onlv vi^d
arguments, but a collection of the evidence whicn may
be drawn from the Holy Scriptures themselves against
then- own perversion.

XXXVIII. — Oroomhridge*8 Farm and Garden Essays. No. I., the
GaltiTation of Arable Land. London: Groombridge and Sons.

This promises to be a most valuable work ; it is intend-
ed to comprehend the entire circle of agriculture, aiid the
best practical methods of English gardening. It will also
convey practical instructions concerning the^ different
animals m use upon a farm ; the mode of choosing, treat-
ing, and soforth, with the qualities of machines, manures,
and other agricultural properties. We are happy to
observe in it some hints concerning the management of
those worst used and least considered animals upon a ftinn
— the labourers. This is great promise, the question no
doubt arises, how it will be fulfilled ? We think the editor-
ship of John Donaldson, a government land-drainage
surveyor, and the author of vanous agricultural works, is
a fair guarantee for the value of the instructions, and
nothing can be better or more sensible than the form in
which they are offered to the public. The style is plain
and clear. Each number will complete its own subject,^ a
great advantage to those who cannot buy, or do not require
the whole set. They are well got up, and the price is very
low.

XXXIX. — The Cousms. Amnsing and Instructive Lessons in the
French Language. By a Lady. Parts L and II. London :
Richardson and Son.

A simple, easy introduction to French grammar, some-
thing upon the plan of the Abb6 Gaultier's lessons, and
which may give some useful hints to teachers.

XL. — Elementary Catechisms upon Gardening ; Cottage Farming ;
Qeographj ; History of England ; Sanitation. London : Groom-
bridge and Sons, Paternoster Row.

We suppose these to be part of a series, and it will be

804 Notices of Books. [Sept

one of considerable value ; a sort of cottage encyclopaddia.
These catechisms contain a great deal of informatioa
given in an intelligible and concise manner.^ Of course
they vary ; a history alwaj^s appears to us particularly bald
when given in the catechism style, though, perhaps^ as a
means of exciting curiosity, or a mere dictionary of facts,
it may have its use. That on Sanitation contains a super-
abundance of truisms, as most works upon the subject do,
even those of greater pretension than the present : but those
on cottage farming and gardening appear to give the results
of modern improvements, in the most practical form in
which we have yet seen them.

XLI. — Tales for Young Catholics; by A. M. S. London: Richard-
son and Son.

Pretty little stories, very edifying from their Catholic
feeling, but of the slightest description; the best amongst
them, under the title of " George and his Pony ; trans-
lated from the German,** is — with the exception of proper
names — a word for word transcript of Miss Edgeworth's
*' Lazy Lawrence.**

XLII. — The Creed of Chrutendom, its Foundations and its Saper-
structure. By William Ratiibone Gret. London: Chapman,
1851.

"Let us pray for the conversion of England." This
was our first involuntary thought upon glancing through
this work. Infidelity in all its snake-like forms is rearing
high its head amongst us. The Catholic Church alone
can make head against it. Will God so enlarge and
fortify as to enable her to do so here, or will He refuse this
blessing to a land that has so long rejected her ? It is not
long since we gave another, and a last sigh, to the fate of
Miss Martineau, whose admirable talents have served her
no better than to lead her into that abyss of atheism upon
whose brink she had long been wandering. And now we
chance upon the work of a man of education and ability, of
whose natural good qualities we should be inclined to
believe well, who with an assumption of martyrdom and
love of truth, constitutes himself tne champion of infidelity,
decked out in all the gloss of the most pernicious of Ger-
man fancies. Mr. Grey says : ** I was compelled to see
that there is scarcely a low and dishonouring conception of
God current among men, scarcely a narrow and malignant

183 1 .] Notices of Books. 305

passion of the human heart, scarcely a moral obliquity,
scarcely a political error or misdeed, which Biblical texts
are iK)t, and may not be, without any violence to their
obvious signification, adduced to countenance and justify."
Hear, Oh ye conscientious and zealous Protestants, the
effect of " Bible without note orcomment,'' or reconciling
authority, upon many a clear head, and even upon many a
well disposed heart ! Hear, too, the admission of this our
common antagonist: " All who have come much into con-
tact with the minds of children or of the uneducated
classes, are fully aware how unfitted to their mental condi-
tion are the more wide. Catholic, and comprehensive views
of religion, which yet we hold to be the true ones, and how
essential it is to them to have a well-defined, positive,
somewhat dogmatic, and above all, a divinely attested and
authoritative creed, deriving its sanctions from without.
Such are best dealt with by narrow, decided, and undoubting
minds."

We have no desire to follow out the specious falsehoods
of this wicked book ; but we think the time is not far off
when the Church of Christ will have to bend her most
strenuous energies against such men as these ; and when
all who value the great dogmas of Christianity will be too
thankful to range themselves upon her side, and not
against her.

XLIIL — PUafor **Eomanizeri* (so called) in the Anglican Communum.
. A Letter to the Lord Bishop of London, by the Rey. Arthuu
Baker, M.A., Wadham College, Oxford. London : Masters,
I860.

This good man still entertains visions of child-like
loyalty and obedience to his spiritual superiors, of guidance
and help to be received from them. He pleads with them
earnestly for the doctrines and usages of antiquity, — still
more earnestly for an approximation to that Catholic
union which, he says, ^'is necessaiy for the maintenance
of truth/' No one can question the sincerity of his long-
ings^ and of his self-delusions ; and we should deeply com-
passionate him for the rough hard shocks which must
awaken him, did we not know that this awakening, if it
please God to send it, will be to truth, and all the joys she
brings with her.

VOL. XXXL-No. LXI. 2Q

80G Noiicen of Books. [Sept.

XLIV.— 1. A Handbook'of Boman Antiquities. By Dr. B. P. Bojesen.
Translated from the German yersion of Dr. Hoffa, by the Rev. R.
B. Paul. Edited by the Rev. T. E. Arnold, M. A. London :
Riviugtons, 1848.

2. A Handbook of Grecian Antiquities, By Dr. E. F. BojBSEir.
Translated by the Roy. R. B. PAUii. London : Rivingtons, 1848.

3. The Athenian Stage, By Augustus WrrscriBL. Translated by
the Rev. R. B. Paul, London : Rivingtons, 1850.

4. Handbook of Ancient Geography and History. By Wilrelx Potz.
Translated by the Rey. R. B. Paul London : Rivingtons, 1849.

5. Handbook of Mediceval Geography and History. By Wilhelx
PuTZ. London : Rivingtons, 1849.

6. Handbook of Modem Geography and History, By Wilhelm Pun.
London : Rivingtons, 1850.

We have much pleasure lu calling attention to the
excellent manuals enumerated in the above Catalogue.
If there be any department of learning in which a German
is especially fittea to labour usefully and well, it is in
dip:esting and methodizing the results of the investigalionfl
of others. ^ The very necessities of such a task form the
best security against his indulging unduly in that tendency
to speculation, which is the besetting sin of Grerman
enquirers ; and the singularly patient and laborious habits
for which the German literati have been so lonff distin-
guished, form the very best qualification for me more
minute and delicate details of the undertaking.

There is no branch of German literature in which this
is more api)arent, than in the numberless Handbooks which
the last thirty years have produced in Germany in every

Eossible department of science, literature, and art. Com-
ining brevity of manner with exceeding copiousness of
detail ; uniting the most accurate and profound leamin);r
with an unpretending simplicity which it is impossible not
to admire; and above all, arranged for the most part in an
order which not only facilitates the study of the subject,
but supplies the best security for its being permanently
impressed upon the memory; the German Handbooks
may seem almost to realize the ideal of true text-books
for the use of a student, who desires to learn a subject
accurately, to master it easily, and to retain it permanently
and well.

All this is especially true of the Handbooks now before
us. We should add, however, that those of Greek and
Roman Antiquities, are only German by adoption; the

1851.] Notices oj Books. 307

originals having been composed by Dr. Bojesen, professor
of Greek in the University of Soro.

The leading characteristic of these Handbooks is their
exceeding simplicity, the excellent order with which they
are arranged, the completeness of their details, and the
remarkable accuracy and elaborate erudition which they
exhibit in every page. They have this further advantage,
which it is impossible to over-estimate ; — that they bring
down their respective subjects to the very latest period,
and present us with the results of the most recent investi-
gations of the critics and antiquarians by whom they have
been discussed. There is a tone of gravity and sober cool-
ness, too, pervading them all, which contrasts very strik-
ingly with the exaggerated extremes, to which many of
the^ ver^ authors, to whose labours the Handbooks are
mainly indebted, have carried their own peculiar theories.
I ** Pernaps the best means of illustrating these observations
may be to transcribe a passage taken at random from one
of the volumes themselves. The following paragraphs,
illustrating the social usages of the Athenians— the Rela-
tions of the family at Athens, will be read with interest.

" Sec. 2. Marriage. — The only forbidden decrees were those of
parents and children, and of brothers and sisters by the same
mother. It was required that every marriage should be preceded
by a betrothal (^77V70'iv), with consent of the nearest male relatives,
or guardian (Kvp^os) of the maiden, otherwise it was not fully legiti«
mate, and did not entitle the parties to all the privileges of lawful
matrimony, e. g, the Jura agnationis (ayx'^'''^*'*)! which only belonged
to children begotten in marriage in every respect regular {r^u^aiot,
opOws '^e<^€Vfjfi€vot). A man was permitted to have only one wife,
but concubinage was not forbidden.* The marriage was sanctioned
by a sacrificial meal, given to the members of the bridegroom's
Phratria, into which the bride was now received. The dowry was
generally given by the father or Kvpio9 of the bride ; the husband
had only the usufruct, and was obliged to give security, that, in
the event of death or separation, the woman or her kindred should
receive it back. Tiie husband might divorce his wife [€KTrep.weiv),
but in that case must either restore her the dowry, or pay her the
interest of it, and provide sufficiently for her maintenance. If
both parties agreed to the separation, nothing further was requisite ;
bat in the event of the wife wishing to leave (&wo\ei7rei,v) her hus-
band, it was necessary for her to lodge a complaint before the
Arobon. The next of kin could claim, in virtue of his relationship,

i^ — ^ ■■■ ■ ■ ■ - — , — ._^«, ^ ■ I ■■■■■■ ■— ■ I — ' ■ ■ - •

* In later times connexions with tratpat had a fatal effect upon
the domestic life of the Athenians.

308 Kotices of Books. [Sept-

the baud of an heiress or daughter left withoat brothers (cV/rXi^/i^),
even although she were married before the death of tbe testator ;
l)at on the other hand he was also compelled by lair to marry
evon a poor Epicleros, or give her a dowry on her marnagre with
another. These ttrtKXrjpoi were protected by the law from ill-treat-
ment {KfiKtvot^) on the part of their husbands.

" Sec. 3. Parental Axtihoriiy, Adoption, Guardianship. — The
authority of the father and its consequent priyileges were depend-
ent on the full legality of the marriage, in virtue of which the Bon*8
name was enrolled in the register of his fatber^s Pbratria. The
father had the right of exposing his children, and of expelling or
repudiating {avoKfipyrreiv) his sons, if they deserved it. He was
bound to teach his son a trade, and the son on his part was required
in return to support his aged parents. Adoption (ciffv-o/^^cs) was
generally employed as a means of obtaining an heir : sometimes it
was viewed in the light of a duty undertaken for the purpose of
keeping up the family and its sacra. It was always, however, sub-
ject to the condition, that there were no sons, and that if there were
daughters, one of them should marry the adopted person, provided
he were an Attic citizen. The adopted son could not return to his
original family, unless he left an heir of his body in that which had
adopted him. Guardianship was under the superintendence of the
state. By law the term " infant *' or " minor '* was applied not
only to persons under age, who had either their father as their
natural guardian {xvpios), or other itrhpoiroi^ but also to women, who
could not en|?age in any matter of importance without the consent
of those under whose manus or potestas they were placed. The
legal majority seems to have been attained on the completion of
the eighteenth ^ear, when the youth was admitted among the
Ephebi. Guardians, although in most cases those on whom rela-
tionship imposed that duty, might also be appointed by will. The
guardianship of the EpiclSri, and the management of property be-
longing to minors, were subject to the control of the Archon.

'* Sec. 4. Bight of inhentxince, and of making a Witt. None but
children begotten in regular marriage were entitled to the propertv
of their parents : consequently voBoi were excluded from this privi-
lege, and could only claim a sum amounting at most to one thou-
sand drachmae. The same rule applied to adopted children t blood
relationship, as a ground of claim to inheritance, is called a^fxie^^lu^
and comprehended not only children, but collateral relations (by
ev<^^iv€ia, in opposition to alliance by marriage, which conferred
no such right). Sons who had been disinherited on insufficient
ffrounds might appeal. The children of one who at the time of his
death was urifio^ on account of debt to the state, inherited the
atipia and the obligations of their father. All the sons inherited
equally, the daughters merely received a portion. In default of
sons, the daughters inherited (iwtKKtipot), With regard to collateral
relations, it was the Attic law, iu cases of intestacy, that the males

1851 .] Notices of Books. 309

«hoold inherit in preferenr^ to females, even although tfie latter
were more nearly related to the deceased. Wlien there were neither
natural nor adopted heirs, the inheritance fell to a member of the
»ame Phjie, except in the case of resident aliens {fieToiKoi)^ whose
property under those circumstances lapsed to the state. Every
free citizen had the right of making a will {StuO^Kii), with the ex-
ception of the Bfffiowotrjroi [88, o], adopted sous, and a few others.
Wills however were invalid, where there were heirs of the body
not disqualified by law ; but if they were only daughters, a stranger
might inherit, subject to the condition of marrying one of them.
In all cases, legacies {^vpcai) might be left, provided the estate and
the rights of the natural heirs were not injured. None but citizens
(including ^^/toxoii^Toi) could inherit property. Great importance
was attached by the state to the subject of inheritances, the atten-
tion of the people being drawn to it at every ixicXtftna xvpia. The
ground of this strictness seems to have been principally a religious
fear, lest any house should become entirely extinct/* — pp. 7I<74.

The volume on Roman Antiquities is in many respects
even more complete ; and it has this additional advantage,
that it treats separately the Antiquities of the Consulate,
and those of the Empire. The neglect of this distinction
in many of our popular compilations, tends to create con-
fusion, and to extreme inaccuracy.

Piitz's Handbooks of History are compiled with great
care, and arranged in an easy and excellent order. ** The
Mediaeval History/* and " Modern History," are not free
from serious inaccuracies, as regards Catholic principles,
and Catholic History. Perhaps it would be impossible to
expect that they should be othei-wise, coming from the pen
of a Protestant compiler. But we are not without hope
that a Catholic editor may be induced to turn his attention
to the expurgation of these blemishes ; and of the substance
of the history itself, with a very few drawbacks, we may
speak in terms of the highest commendation.

XLV. — Lewis Arundel, or the Railroad of Life, by Frank Faiblegh.

A spirited, amusing, and original novel; — a great
desideratum in these days, when they come out but slowly.
Lewis Arundel is in parts, with all the allurements of
frontispiece and illustration to which the public have been
accustomed. But really it stands in no need of them.
There are decided originality, style, siuiplicity, and
lisrhtiiess. The nine numbers which have appeared, con-
tain passages which are^ really atfecting, with a great

3|0 Notices of Books. / [Sept

deal of genuine pleasantry and fun. Should they continue
as good as they promise to be, we will endeavour to
interest our readers in this very agreeable publication.

XLVI. — The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary^ Mother of Ood ; taken
from the traditions of the East, the mauners of the Israelite:^
and the writings of the Holy Fathers. By Mons. L*Abb6 Orsimi:
translated by the Rev. Patrick Power. Dublin, 1850.

This is a work of European reputation; it has gone through
several editions, received the highest testimonials of appro-
bation from authorised judges; and from its wide circulation,
has obtained proof of popular admiration. Such a work
cannot fail to be an acquisition ; and it is so well translated,
that the English public lose but little of the beauty of a
stately and graceful style of writing. Were we to confess
a feeling of disappointment, it would be in all humility,
and with the full consciousness that the diflBiculty of doing
justice to such a subject, makes criticism almost a pre-
sumption. Since, however, we cannot deny such a feehng,
we will give the reasons for the objections which we ven-
ture to make. In the earlier part of the life of our Lady,
every detail is given with exceediugminuteness ; the dress,
the daily occupations of the holy tlecluse of the Temple ;
the circumstances of her espousals, the interior of her
domestic Ufe, are described with a vivid exactness to which
the mind yields willing credence, supported as it is by the
author^s profound knowledge of the Eastern customs of
those days, and of tradition. The details are based upon
the traditions of the Jewish Patriarchs, and Christian
Fathers ; and the literature of the East has been searched,
for scattered rays of light, whereby to illustrate them. It
is certain that after all this wealth of fancy, we feel a pro-
portionate disappointment at the meagreness which
ensues at the very period when our Blessed Lady's life
becomes most deeply interesting to the way worn Christian
who invokes her as his ** Help" to the afflicted, of whom
she is the ** Comforter.'* During that period when, fore-
shadowing as it were the peculiar virtues of the conven-
tual life, she was nevertheless drawn forth into the world
by such intense interests, tradition would seem, if we must
believe the lives that have been written, to have forsaken
us. Yet there are in the Church traditions which,
although not of faith, must have had some substantial foun-
dation. We have heard it stated that our Lord, before

1851 .] Notices of Books. 3 1 1

His passion, went to His mother^ to obtain her blessing
and sanction upon His work; than which, perhaps, no
Christian mind ever entertained a more astounding esti-
mate of the greatness of Mary ; but yet, not an incredible
estimate to those who believe that, as God, He might
require of the representative of Eve this sacrifice, and as
Man, might thus consummate His example of obedience
to this earthly parent, who herself set the example of perfect
conformity to the Divine Will. Many things have been
communicated through revelations to the saints, which the
Church has not feared to accept for the purposes of edifi-
cation.* In a discourse upon the Passion, based upon
such authority, it was said, that when our Lady entered
upon the scene of the Passion, under Divine guidance, she
tracked Her Son through His most cruel agonies — ^giving
the first example of the Stations of the Cross — before she
permitted herself the agonizing indulgence of rejoining
Him upon the road to Calvary. Still more consonant to
probability and human feeling is the opinion so exquisitely
expressed in an Oratorian hymn, that our Lord appeared
Jirst^ and in that privacy in which it was His pleasure to
veil their domestic intercourse, to His Mother. Whereas
the Abb^ Orsini represents her as the Mary to whom He
came disguised as a gardener, and who addressed to Him
those words of earnest love, but of imperfect faith : *' Sir,
if thou hast taken Him away, tell me where thou hast laid
Him, and I will take Him away.*' We cannot but regret
the absence of these beautiful ideas ; we cannot but desire
some life of our Blessed Lady, in which the gious tradi-
tions and revelations that have been accepted in the later
ages of the Church, should be collected and arranged with
the care, the elegance, and the acumen that the Abb6
Orsini has exercised upon those of a former period.

XLVn. — Letters to a Eussian Oenileman on the Spanish Inquisition^ by
the Count Joseph de Maistre. Translated by the Rev. JBneas
Mc. D. Dawson. London : Dolman.

These letters are written in a spirit of good faith and
sincerity, and with a boundless reliance on *' Hol^ Mother
Church,*' which will be at once grateful and convincing to
the Catholic heart. To say that they have made us in

F. Faber at the Oratory.

312. Notices of Books. Sept.].

love with the Inquisition, would be by no means true ;
neither can this be justly called an accurate examination
and refutation of the charges against that institution.
The author has, however, brought forwai'd facts, proving,
that the Inquisition was a tribunal chiefly composed of
civilians, and always under the controul and manage-
ment of the civil power, and that thus, as has been innu-
merable times alleged, the Church was not res^nsible
for its worst evils ; and he has shewn that those evils have
been grossly, absurdly, exaggerated,

XLVIII. — The Signs of the Timw, or the Popery of Protestanttsm.
Loudon : Gibbs, 1851.

We know not who is the author of this pamphlet, to us
chiefly remarkable for the boldness of its crushing attack
upon the Bishop of London. By no means inclined to
look upon (Catholics with an eye of favour, the author,
nevertheless, puts the very pertinent question, "Is the
church of England herself in a position to hurl anathemas
at ambitious Rome?'* And to this he answers by such a
detail of her divisions and the misdoings of het Bishops,
as makes us — poor enslaved benighted Catholics — hold up
our hands in dismay. How could we tolerate the oppres-
sion, the double dealing, the haughty uncharitableness, *
of 'which so many cases are here satiefactorily made out ?
Let us be thankful, amidst the insults and wrongs inflicted
and threatened upon us, that we are safe, at least, from
one ; — the state cannot inflict upon us a ** Charles James
London.'*

<

XLIX — The Naturalist, a popular Monthly Maffftsine, illaBtratire nf ;
the AnimaU Vegetable, and Mineral kingdoms, with nomeroua
engravings. Conducted by Bbyerley R. Morris, E^Q-, A:.B.»
M.D., T.C.D. London : Groombridge and Soins.

So far as we can judge from a first number, we should
say this work was likely to deserve its title of** popular."
However strongly the introduction may recommend the
study of Natural History, the work, so far, does not pro-
mise much science or regularity of plan. We are ashamed
to admit that we like it all the better, for it contains some
curious and amusing particularities of the animal cfeation,
familiarly described, in which we, and perhaps there are
others who may agree with us, take greater clelight thau
in their scientific classification.

PRINTED BY RICHARDSO.>| AND SON, DBRBT.

THE

DUBLIN REVIEW

DECEMBER. 1851.

Art. I. — 1. Memoirs of William Wordsworth, Poet Laureate, D.O.L,,
by Christopher Wordsworth, D.D., Canou of Westminster, 2 vols.
London: Moxon, 1851.

2. The Poetical Works of William WordstDorth, 6 vols. London :
Moxon, 1851.

WORDSWORTH has said in one of his prefaces,
that " every author as far as he is great, and at the
same time original, has the task of creating the taste by
which he is to be enjoyed.^' He is himself an example of
the truth of this remark, and perhaps it was called forth,
or its justice acquiesced in (for it was originally made by
Coleridge), on account of the coldness, or rather the scorn
and contempt, with which his own best writings were for a
long succession of years treated by the public. And in-
deed it is impossible to remember without something of
sadness and discouragement, that the veriest trash, the
dross and rotten offal have been almost uniformly preferred
by contemporaries, to sound and sterling literature. A
great poet, especially, must very often trust his fame to
posterity, and it not unfrequently happens, that posterity
itself, whilst reverencing his name, will neglect his writings,
for the most contemptible, silly, and immoral productions.
" The invaluable works,** says Wordsworth, in the preface
printed at the end of the second volume of his poems, *' of
our elder writers, I had almost said of Shakspeare and

VOL.:XXXI.-No, LXII, 1

rih.

314 Wordswortlis Life and IVritwgs. [Dec.

Milton, are driven into neglect by frantic novels, sickly
and stupid German tragedies, and deluges of idle and ex-
travagant stories in verse/* Since these words were
written, the evil has fearfully increased; whole libraries of
frantic novels are issued weekly and monthly by the press,
at prices varying from a penny to a shilling, the least faults
of which are, that they corrupt the taste,^ and the worst,
that they corrupt the hearts of the rising generation.
Numerous infamous bookshops are supported in every
large town in the united kingdom, by the almost exclusive
sale of these immoral publications. They are sold in the
streets and at the railway stations, and are read by the
idle at home, by the traveller on his journey, and above all,
on Sundays, by milliners and tradespeople, who are con-
fined to sedentary occupations during the week. The best
of these publications are written as if all the functions of
the soul as well as the toils of the body were confined to
this world ; they never cast one earnest glance heaven-
ward, and if the name be mentioned at all, it is merely as
a figure of speech to express earthly felicity. Their virtue
is the outpouring of mere natural benevolence and kind-
heartedness, ana thus they ai*e calculated indirectly to
efiect that which the worst openly attempt, the destruction
of the faith and morality of the gospel. From the weak-
ness and corruption of the human heart, such writings,
however contemptible as literary productions, will be far
more^ widely circulated, and consequently far more remu-
nerative, than those which touch with the most exquisite
tenderness the highest and holiest impulses and sympathies
of man's immortal spirit, and those who generously devote
themselves to the latter, will have to make their way in
spite often of poverty, and almost always of neglect and
obloquy.

Wordsworth was fully conscious that he did not tread
the path which leads to popularity. In his letters he
sometimes playfully calls himself *'that popular poet,
W. Wordsworth.** Writing to Sir George Beaumont, he
says, ** llcmember that no poem of mine will ever be
popular;** and indeed during his entire life, he always
stated with the utmost candour the exact extent to which
his writings had been circulated. He declared that he
never wrote a line for profit, although he lived and married
on a hundred a year. In July, 1829, when in his sixtieth
year, he says, in a letter to Mr. Huntley Gordon, " I have

1851.] Wordsworth^ s Life and Writings. 315

laboured hard through a long life without more pecuniary
emolument than a lawyer gets for two special retainers, or
a public performer sometimes for two or three songs/*
He had said previously, to Archdeacon Wrangham (in
1813), that his literary employments brought him no
remuneration, nor promise of any. ** Seven or eight years
later*'* he writes to the same friend, " the whole of my
returns — I do not say net profits but returns — from the
writing trade, do not amount to seven score pounds ;'* and
in 1833 he informs Mr. Moxon, his publisner, that not a
copy of his works had been sold by one of the leading
booksellers in Cumberland, though that was his native
county. He adds a presentiment which has been fulfilled
probably sooner than he expected, — " As to my occupa-
tions, they look little at the present age ; but I live in
hope of leaving something behmd me that by some minds
will be valued.** It required great moral courage, au
immoveable conviction of the rectitude of his own views,
and a strong faith in his own powers, to enable him to
bravo the contempt of the world, the sneers of most of the
popular writers of the day, and the scornful revilings of
almost all the organs by which the likings of the public
were imperiously ruled in those times. But the light of
his own genius enabled him to see through the clouds which
obscured the vision of his contemporaries, and he consoled
himself by remembering " the obscurity of men of genius
in or near their own times.'* "But tho most singular
thing,** he used to say, " is, that in all the writings of
Bacon, there is not one allusion to Shakspcare.** He
also owed a great deal to his admirable sister — his con-
stant companion during life — and afterwards to his wife
and sister-in-law, who fervently admired his genius, wrote
down his melodies as he uttered them aloud, and thus
conferred upon him the purest happiness which this earth
affords — the consciousness of being revered and honoured
by those whom he truly loved. In his works he frequently
alludes to these three ladies with the deepest affection. lu
the following beautiful lines he speaks of his sister and
his wife \\

* This letter is without date, but it was written between 1819
and 1 830. The words in italics in tho text were underlined by
Wordsworth himself.

+ The Prelude, p. 364.

316 Wordsworth^ s Life and WrUhtgs. [Dec*

"When every daj brought with it some new seuse

Of exquisite regard for common things,

And all the earth was budding with these gifts

Of more refined humanity, thy truth,

Dear sister ! was a kind of gentler spring

That went before my steps. Thereafter came

One whom with thee friendship had early paired ;

She came, no more a phantom to adorn

A moment, but an inmate of the heart,

And yet a spirit there for me enshrined

To penetrate the lofty and the low ;

Even as one essence of pervading light

iShines in the brightest of ten thousand stars,

And the meek worm that feeds her lonely lamp

Couched in the dewy grass.**

The following exquisite poem, which, as we leani from
the manuscript notes published in his Life, was addressed to
his wife, expresses how sincerely he esteemed her :

" She was a phantom of delight
AiVhen first she gleam*d upon my sight ;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament ;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair,
Like twilight's too her dusky hair ;
But all things else about her drawn
From May- time's brightest liveliest dawn ;
A dancing shape, an image gay.
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.

" I saw her upon nearer view,

A spirit, yet a woman too !

Her household motions light and free,

And steps of virgin-liberty ;

A countenance in which did meet

Sweet records, promises as sweet ;

A creature not too bright or good

For liuman nature's daily food ;

For transient sornows, simple wiles.

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

" And now I see with eyes serene
The very* pulse of the machine ;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death !
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Eudurance, foresight, strength, and skill.

1851.] WordswortlCs Life and Writings, 317

A perfect woman, noblj planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command ;
And yet a spirit still, and bright,
With something of an angel-light."

Vol. ii. p. 88.

His wife and sister survived him, but his sister-in-law,
Sarah Hutchinson, di*ed before him. He has commemo-
rated her virtues in more than one poem, but we have
only room for a single extract. After her death, he gave
her name and that of her sister to two heights near his
own residence, to which circumstance he alludes in the
following lines :

" I, a witness
And frequent sharer of their calm delight,
With thankful heart to either eminence
Gave the baptismal name each sister bore.
Now are thej parted far as death *s cold hand
Hath power to part the spirits of those who love
As thej did love. Ye kindred pinnacles —
That while the generations of mankind
Follow each other to their hiding-place
In time's abyss, are privileged to endure
Beautiful in yourselves and richlj graced
With like command of beauty — grant your aid
For Mary's humble, Sarah's silent claim.
That their pure joy in nature may survive
From age to age iu blended memory."

In' the preface which is printed at the end of the second
volume of his works, he says that the object which he pro-
posed to himself in his writings, was to express common
events m simple language, and to make the feelings give
importance to the action and situation, not the action and
•situation to the feelings. Hence he shunned with the
utmost diligence all violent and distorted language, and
although himself a German scholar, he entertained a
salutary horror for that Germanising, which was for 'a
time the rage both in prose and verse. Speaking of one
of his sonnets, he says,"^" '* I was impelled to write this
sonnet by the disgusting frequency with which the word
avtistical, imported with othfer impertinences from the
Germans, is employed by writers of the present day. For
* artistical,* let them substitute * artificial,* and the

^* Life, vol. ii. p. 341.

318 Wordsworth's Life and Writings, [Dec*

poetry written on this system, both at home and abroad,
will be for the most part much better characterised."
And ap:ain, writing to Professor Read, he asks, " Do you
know Miss Pcabody of Boston ? She has just sent me, with
the hi<i:hcst eulogy, certain essays of Mr. Emerson.
Our (CarlylcO and he appear to be what the French
used to call 'esjrrits forts, ^ though the French idols showed
their spirit after a somewhat different fashion. Our two
present philosophers, who have taken a language which
they suppose to be English, for their vehicle, are verily,
^ par iiohile fratrumy' and it is a pity that the weakness of
our age has not left them exclusively to their appropriate
reward — mutual admiration. Where is the thing which
now passes for philosophy at Boston to stop?*^^^ The
poet^s own diction is in general remarkably clear and per-
spicuous—it is a fine specimen of pure English in its high-
est and most cultivated form. It is always sweet and
musical, and never strives by inversions and contortions to
supply the place of passionate thoughts. It has also the
great charm of simplicity, and although he informs us that
he polished his productions with the most exact care, and
that they cost him great and prolonged labour, yet his
*Svas an invisible hand of art, everywhere working in the
very spirit of nature.*'

But neither his style nor his diction are entirely fault-
less. The fonner is sometimes obscure, and the latter is
occasionally, if not low, certainly too plain for anything
above familiar conversation. In his really great poon^,
" The Excursion," intense, and even painful attention is
often required not to lose his meaning. How much more
easy is it to follow Shakspeare, notwithstanding the manv
obsolete words which occur in his writings, for although
the reader may not know the meaning of each particular
word, nor be able minutely to analyze the passage, yet tha
whole context is so perspicuous, that he cannot mistake it.
lie looks upon the stream of poetic thought as upon a
broad winding river, or a glorious cataract, some minute
portions of which may be concealed from his view, but he
still sees the river gliding on, and the cataract flashing to
the abyss below. We do not here speak of the general
merits of Wordsw^rth's poetry, but simply of his style in
relation to the single attribute of perspicuity, and although

* Life, vol. ii. p. 381.

1851.] Wordsworth's L{fe and Writings. 319

his meaning often requires deep attention, yet this fre-
quently arises from the depth and minuteness with which
he views the beauties of nature. That a greater mind
could have avoided this defect is clear, from the example
of Shakspeare, but the student of Wordsworth is sure to
be rewarded for his perseverance, for the thought, when
discovered, will always^ be found to be true to nature, and
beautiful. His exquisitely fine natural taste was perfected
by constant study, for he was firmly convinced that good
poetry can never be produced without great labour.
"Again, and again,^* he says, "I must repeat, that the
composition of verse is infinitely more of an art than men
are prepared to believe, and absolute success in it depends
upon innumerable minutiae. Milton talks of 'pouring
easy his unpremeditated verse. ^ It would be harsh,
untrue, and odious, to say that there is anything like cant
in this ; but it is not true to the letter, and tends to mis-
lead. I could point out to you five hundred passages in
Milton, upon which labour has been bestowed, and twice five
hundred more to which additional labours would^ have been
serviceable.^-^ In another place, (Life, vol. ii. p. 474,)
he says, " Sir James Mackintosh said of me, to M. de
Stael, * Wordsworth is not a great poet, but he is the
greatest man amongst the poets.' Madame de Stael com-
plained of my style. Now whatever may be the result of
my experiment in the subjects which I have chosen for
poetical composition, be they vulgar, or be they not, I can
say, without vanity, that I have bestowed great pains on
my style, full as much as any of my contemporaries have
done on theirs. I yield to none in love for my art ; I
therefore labour at it with reverence, afibction, and indus-
try. My main endea.vour as to style has been, that my
poems should be written in pure intelligible English.^'
Wordsworth was so disgusted by the gaudy and pom-

Eous finery which passed for poetry for a considerable time
efore he began to write, and by the artificial tinsel which
was substituted for genuine passion, that in his earliest
productions he was sometimes betrayed, by the ardour of
youth, into the opposite extreme. For instance, into such
lines and passages as the following.

** A little boy dear brother Jem."
♦ Ibid. 255.

320 JVof*dsworlIts Life and Writings. [Dec.

Again : —

" A cruel cruel fire, thej saj.
Into her bones was sent ;
It dried her body like a cinder ^
And almost turned her hones to tinder,**

And even in the edition of 1807, the '^ Blind Highland
Boy "' is thus described : —

^' A household tub, like one of those
Which women use to wash their clotltes.
This carried the blind boj."

It is true Wordsworth or his friends have had sufficient
discernment to purify his poems from such gross and
meaningless vulgarities, but they drew down upon him a
world of ridicule at the time, and caused his book to be
neither bought nor read, for the public was, in general,
satisfied by such specimens as these, which were carefully
culled out, that their author was incapable of writing
poetry. But after all the corrections and changes which
his works have undergone, they still retain some passages
which the tenderest critic must call puerile and absurd.
For instance, in the pretty little poem *^ Lucy Gray,'* the
second stanza is —

" No mate, no comrade, Lucy knew,
She dwelt on a wide moor,
The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door V

The vulgar pronunciation of door required by the rhyme,
the epithet " human," and the allusion to the sense of
smell, are sure to suggest to the imagination a not very
odoriferous object which may sometimes be found not far
IVoiTi a human door. We could give other specimens of
this kind, but at the same time we are glad to say, that m
the later editions of his works they are not numerous.
Wordsworth did not fall into these errors through igno-
rance of the right principle, for he was fully aware that if
the languagie in wliich the actions of humble life are repre-
sented should be simple, it should be, at the same time, free
from all imperfections. An inflated distorted style is veiy
easily acquired ; the simple, the natural, and the true, not
without deep and attentive study of the best and purest
writers in the language. Vulgarism is as foreign to it as

1851,] Wordsworth's Life and Writings. 321

bombast, or even as German distortions. With, however,
very trifling exceptions, Wordsworth's works are pure
English in diction and in style, and we consider this a very
high compliment, so high, indeed, that we think it would
alone be sufficient to render them immortal.

Wordsworth differed as widely from the prevailing taste
of his time, in the selection of his subjects, as in the stj'le
of his compositions. He studied to make the feelings give
importance to the action and situation, not the action
and situation to the feelings. Metrical tales and romances
were the rage of the time, and the contempt which he
entertained for the whole class, may be inferred from the
o|)inion which he expressed regarding the poetry of his
friend, Sir Walter Scott. " In his best manner, (says
the author of the Reminiscences printed in his Life, vol. ii.
pp. 444^6,) with earnest thoughts given out in noble dic-
tion, Wordsworth gave his reasons for thinking, that, as a
poet, Scott would not live." " I don't like,'' he said, " to
say all this, or to take to pieces some of the best reputed
passages of Scott's verse, especially in presence of my
wife, because she thinks me too fastidious ; but as a poet
Scott cannot live, for he has never, in verse, written any-
thing addressed to the immortal part of man. In making
amusing stories in verse he will be superseded by some
new versifier ; what he writes in the way of natural de-
scription, is merely rhyming nonsense . " In another place
he says that Scott never goes below the surface. Utterly
scorning, therefore, all poetry which was only read for the
tale which it conveyed, and disdaining, for the most part,
to seek for any adventitious aid of this kind, he wished to
make poetry the record of the highest passions and feel-
ings, and penetrating the outward forms of things, to make
it pourti'ay that invisible soul which is perceived or created
in them by the imagination of the poet. Nor are these
meaningless words, for there is an harmonious sympathy
between the visible and invisible, which enables the eye of
ffcnius to find tongues iu trees, books in the running
brooks, and sermons in stones, which shows the highest
aspirations, and the holiest charities of the soul reflected
in the beauties of external nature, and enables the simplest
wanderer in the fields to behold the beneficent influence of
the great primal cause in the unpretending wild flower, as
well as in the wide-spread heavens. This idea is inimi-
tably expressed by Lorenzo, in the Merchant of Venice :

322 Wordsworth's Life and Writings. IDeC

*< IIow sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank !
Hero will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears ; soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmonj.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.
There's not the smallest orb which thou beholds't.
But in its motion like an angel sings.
Still quiring to the young-ojed cherubim,
Such harmonj is in immortal souls/'

Never was there a man who understood the mute
language of inanimate nature, of stream, and tree, and
flower, better than Wordsworth. So entirely was he some-
times rapt in the spiritual and the ideal, as to become
utterly unconscious of the reality by which his reflections
had been originally called forth. *' I remember,*^ says the
author of the Reminiscences, (quoted in the Life, vol. ii. p.
480,) " Mr. Wordsworth saying, that at a particular stage
of his mental progress, he used to be so frequently rapt
into an unreal transcendental world of ideas, that the ex-
ternal world seemed no longer to exist in relation to him,
and he had to reconvince himself of its existence by clasp-
ing a tree, or something that happened to be near him. I
could not help connecting this fact with that obscure pas-
sage in his great ode on the " Intimations of Immortality,'*
in which he speaks of

* Those obstinate questionings
Of sunse and outward things ;
Fallings from us vanishing ;
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized."

But although Wordsworth's imagination was so power-
ful and penetrating, yet it was not all ideal, but insepar-
ably connected with the individual objects which called it
forth in the outward world. He has himself left this on
record, in the manuscript notes which he wrote to explain
to a friend the most remarkable things connected with the
growth of his mind, and the occasions which called forth
his chief poems. His was not that great and universal
genius which, like Homer's or Shakspeare's, could lose all
consciousness of self in the vast creations of its own glori-
ous imagination. In reading the productions of these
two authors, the greatest whom the world has ever beheld.

1851.] Wordsworth's Life and Writings. 323

we are not once reminded of their existence. The artist
is too small and insignificant to occupy even a niche in the
edifice which he has raised, and which shall endure for all
time. Wordsworth, on the contrary, cannot abstract
either from himself, or from external nature, and his most
ideal imaginings are a communication which passes
between them. He never aspires into the heaven of
heavens, nor draws empyreal air. He was content to be
the interpreter of external nature, and to unfold the earth
beneath, and the firmament above. This he does with
charming simplicity, everywhere exhibiting exquisite sym-
pathy with the most minute beauties of nature, and a deep
knowledge of the finer feelings of humanity, as they exist-
ed in his own tender and sensitive heart. It is not the
terrible and the infinite, but the natural, the beautiful, and
the immortal soul which prevades and elevates all things,
that breathes in every page of his writings. He is not the
bursting cataract, or the towering alp, which impresses the
beholder at once with the ideas of terror and of sublimity ;
but cin exquisite secluded valley, where the delighted
wanderer unexpectedly discovers flowering meads, and
murmuring streams, and shady groves, presided over by a
spirit which finds good in everything. But they are cer-
tainly deceived who fondly imagine that his name will
become a household word in all time to come. His most
ardent but injudicious admirers have, indeed, always been
the worst enemies of his fame. One portion of these
selected what they were pleased to call his beauties, that is,
those passages which contained most of the mere man-
nerism of his style, which were, therefore, the very worst
of his productions, and some of which have, in fact, been
very properly altogether expunged from his writings.
The few specimens of this kind which we have already
quoted, were paraded as the brightest aspirations of his
muse, and we are convinced that this was one of the chief
causes which induced the public so long, and so unjustly,
to despise his writings. Other idolaters are not ashamed
to put him on a level with Milton, and even with Shak-
speare himself. " Wordsworth's residence and mine,'*
says Southey, ** are fifteen miles asunder, a sufficient dis-
tance to preclude any frequent interchange of visits. I
have known him nearly twenty years, and for about half
that time intimately. The strength and the character of
his mind you sec in ' The Excursion ;' and his life does

324 Wordswortlis Life and Writings. [Dec.

not belie his writings ; for in every relation of life, and
in every point of view y he is a truly exemplary and admir-
able man. In conversation he is powerful beyond any of
his contemporaries ; and as a poet, I speak not from the
partiality of friendship, nor because we have been both so
absurdly held up, as writing upon one concerted system of
poetry, but with the most deliberate exercise of impartial
judgment whereof I ani capable, when I declare my full
conviction that posterity will rank him with Milton/*
{Soiithey's Life and Correspondence, iv. 91.) What is here
said of his personal character we firmly believe, but it is
utterly absurd and intolerable to compare the '* Excur-
sion" with "Paradise Lost.'* Wordsworth fervently
admired Milton, and choosing a far humbler and less
ambitious theme, endeavoured to imitate him at an hum-
ble distance. He gazed fondly on the bard seated on an
imapproachable eminence, and gratefully and lovingly
gathered the wild flowers which luxuriated around it«
base. In his humble melodies he "gave a soul to the
objects of sense, '^ and invested the beautiful things of
earth with holy ideal charms. But he never ascended the
dizzy altitudes of that high heaven of imagination, whence
the authors of the Iliad, of Macbeth, and of Paradise Lost,
drew their inspiration, and where they beheld those
glorious visions which no mortal tongue but theirs could
utter. To most of his contemporaries he is equal, to the
greater part of them far superior, but let him be matched
with his peers ; it is absurd to say that a molehill is as tall
as Mont Blanc, or the little pretty cascade at Rydal
Mount as grand as the Falls of Niagara.

The subjects chosen by Wordsworth were as different
from those selected by his contemporaries as his style and
manner. This, in some measure at least, resulted from
his determination to make his poems derive whatever
interest they possessed, not from exciting incidents, but
from their own intrinsic beauties. " Humble and rustic
life/' he says,"' " was generally chosen, because in that
condition the essential passions of the heart find a better
soil, in which they can attain their maturity, are less
under constraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic
language ; because, in that condition of life our elementary
feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and, con-

* Preface printed at the end of second volume of his works.

1851.] WordswortlCs Life and Writings. 325

sequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and
more forcibly communicated ; because the manners of
rural life which germinate from those elementary feelings,
and from the necessary character of rural occupations, are
more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and
lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are
incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of
nature/^ There is much truth, not, however, without a
considerable leaven of falsehood, in all this. VVe sympa-
thize with him to the fullest extent in his passionate denun-
ciation of that " degrading thirst after outrageous stimula-
tion'^ which gave currency to so many ^'idle and extrava-
gant stories'' in prose and verse. But Wordsworth, at
all events in his earlier years of authorship, went farther,
and would not admit into his verse anything above the
common incidents of the most lowly life. In such alone
would he admit the existence of true passion and of genuine
poetry; all other feelings were mere stimulations; all
other poetry counterfeit. This is rushing into Scylla in
order to avoid Charybdis. It is quite true that the chief
charm of all genuine poetry must be derived from the
feelings, and not from highly wrought incidents and start-
ling situations. Nothing can be more contemptible than
rhyme, (for we will not call it poetry,) that has nothing
but the story which it tells to recommend it. But we
think it a decided defect in any long poem not to avail
itself of the additional hold upon the attention, and, there-
fore, of the additional charm which is always secured by a
story. Moreover, it serves as a string whereon the imagin-
ation can place in order the pearls of " brightest orient,"
and enables the reader to see clearly and distinctly the
beauty of each as it is unfolded to his view. What we
have been endeavouring to express, is perfectly illustrated
by the writings of the greatest poets. Take Shakspeare,
for instance : each passage is eminently beautiful in itself;
every line being, for the most part, full of precious ore ;
but at the same time, it derives a great additional charm
from the context in which it is placed, and the story of
which it forms a part. This is the great difference between
him and modern dramatists, from whom we get little more
than the story which they tell.

There is also much falsehood in what Wordsworth says
about the selection of subjects from " humble and rustic
life." We love the country fervently, and the infinite

326 Wordswortlis Life and IVritings. [Dec

variety and matchless beauty in which nature clothes
herself. These form a meet theme for the poet, and
sweetly and truly have they been sung by the author of
" The Excursion/^ But the country is one thing and the
rustic clown quite another. Every ploughman is not a
Burns, and the illiterate countryman is far less alive to
the glories spread around him every day than the enlight-
ened citizen, who sees them seldom, but with no unfeeling
eye. We who write thus, prefer a country to a city life so
much, th«nt we cannot look without a feeling of sorrow
upon children who are brought up in a large town or city,
and who have never wove garlands of the oright flowers of
spring, or been charmed by the golden tints of autumn.
We feel as if they never could have been children in the

{>roper sense of the term , and as if they must necessarily
lave been cut off from all those tender feehngs and associ-
ations, which are essentially associated in our mind with
rambles through shady bower and by gushing stream^ the
mere remembrance of which we would not exchange for
the richest mines in the new world. But to infer that
because a man is a humble rustic his passions are incorpo-
rated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature is
utterly untrue. The beauty is not in the object alone, but
in the object as seen by a feeling and imaginative mind,
and the glories of the country which flash upon the inner
eye are often as effectually shut out by the coarseness of the
clown as by the walls of the city. Indeed, any one who has
ever been in the country must be fully sensible of this, and
it cannot be better illustrated than by an anecdote related
by Wordsworth himself. A charming collection of wild-
flowers and mosses overhung a beautiful well in his own
grounds. One evening, as the poet looked upon it with
admiration and delight, he was accosted by a countr^^man,
who said, " that would be a fine well if it were cleared of
the weeds.y .H® has himself remarked a want of
sympathy with inanimate nature in one who spent his life
in the country, and who was, moreover, a poet of a very high
order. *' It is remarkable,^' he says,'*" '* that though I3urus
lived some time here, (at Alasgiel,) and during much the
most productive period of his life, he nowhere adverts to
the splendid prospect stretching towards the sea, and
bounded by the peaks of Arran on one part, which in clear

♦ Life, vol. ii. p. 248.

1851.] Wordsworth's Life and Writings. 327

weather he must have had daily before his eyes. Yet
this is easily explained. In one of his poetical effusions,
he speaks of explaining * fair Nature's face^ as a privilege
on which he sets a high value ; nevertheless, natural
appearances rarely take a lead in Lis poetry. It is as
a human being eminently sensitive and intellip:ent, and not
as a poet clad in his priestly robes, and carrying the
ensigns of sacerdotal office, that he interests and affects
us.*' The truth is, that not only the country and the city,
the mendicant on the street and the crowned king, but all
this visible creation, with the infinitude of invisible asso-
ciations which it calls forth, and even heaven and hell
itself, may supply a meet theme for the poet whose genius
is sufficiently grand to conceive and to execute it. It
needs no proof, for it is attested by the universal consent
of mankind, that it requires incomparably greater genius
to draw the character of Achilles, of Lady Macbeth, or of
Milton's Satan, than that of a pedlar or a country parson,
and that the minds which gave birth to the Iliad, and the
divine comedy, were of an infinitely higher order than that
which produced " The Excursion." Indeed, the muse
which could so long and so lovingly brood over the earthly
forms of " The Excursion,'' truthful and beautiful as they
undoubtedly are, could not soar to that dizzy altitude
where a few, not more than six or seven since the world
began, of her sisters, shine and shall continue to shine,
throug:h all time in undimnied glory. A very pretty and
affecting poem, one which will bring the tears to our eyes,
may be written on an idiot boy or a beggar girl ; but such
a subject could never call forth those subHme passions
which raged in the breast of Richard III. and Othello.
There was nothing sublime in Wordsworth's genius ; it
was confined entirely within the limits of the beautiful.
He seems even to have had a borror of all lofty themes ;
and as an instance of the tendency of his mind in the
selection of his subject, we may mention, that ** The
Pedlar" was the original title of his own great poem " The
Excursion," and that a person of that calling, — but such a
one as never carried a pack upon his back, — is still the
hero of the piece.

Wordsworth was bigotedly attached to his own school
of poetry, and either could not appreciate, or would not
allow, any merit to such of his contemporaries as wrote
upon a different plan. We have already quoted his harsh.

328 Wardiworilts Life and Wnlings. [Dec

and we will add, to some, though not to any very consider-
able extent, unjust censure of Scott's poetry. ^ Of Moore,
he said, " he has great natural genius ; but he is too lavish
of brilliant ornament. His poems smell of the perfumer's
and milliner's shops. He is not content with^ rings and
bracelets, but he must have rings in the ears, rings on the
nose — rings everywhere. Byron," he continued, "seems
to me deficient in feeling. Professor Wilson used to say
that ' Beppo' was his best.poem, because all his faults were
there brought to a height. I never read the ' English
Bards' through. His critical prognostications have for
the most part ijroved erroneous. He has spoken severely
of my compositions. However faulty they may be, I do
not think that I ever could have prevailed upon myself to
print such lines as he has done ; for instance :

* I stood at Venice on the Bridge of Sighs,
A palace and a prison on each hand.*

Some person ought to write a critical review analyzing
Lord Byron's language, in order to guard others against
imitating him in these respects. Shelly is one of the best
artists of us all : I mean in workmanship of style/'*
Writing to Sir George Beaumont,! he says of "Madoc/*
** The poem fails in the highest gift of the poet's mind,
imagination in the true sense of the word, and knowledge
of human nature and of the human heart. There is
nothing that shows the hand of the great master ; but the
beauties in description are innumerable." Elsewhere,
evidently speaking of the same author, he says, "(Southeyj
in the work you mentioned to me, confounds imagery and
imagination. Sensible objects really existing and felt to
exist, are imagery; and they may form the materials of a
descriptive poem where objects are delineated as they are.
Imagination is a subjective term : it dea|s with objects not
as they are, but as they appear to the mind of the poet.
The imagination is that intellectual lens, through the me-
dium of which the poetical obsei'ver sees the objects of his
observation modified both in form and colour. Burns's
* Scots wha ha' is a poor lyric composition. Ariosto and
Tasso are very absurdly depressed in order to elevate
Dante. I have tried to read Goethe. I never could suc-
ceed. Mr. refers me to his * Iphigenia,' but I there

* Life, yoL ii. p. 473-4. t Life, jol. i. p. 311.

1851. 1 Wordsworth's Life and Writings. 329

recognise none of the dignified simplicity, none of the
health and vigour which the heroes and heroines of anti-

Juity j)ossess in the writings of Homer. The Unes of
jucretms, describing the immolation of Iphigenia, are
worth the whole of Goethe's Ions: poem. Again, there is a
profligacy, an inhuman sensuality in his works, which is
utterly revolting. I am not intimately acquainted with
them generally, but I take up my ground on the first
canto of Wilhelm Meister, and as the attorney-general of
human nature, I there indict him for wantonly outraging
the sympathies of humanity. Theologians tell us of the
degraded nature of man ; and they tell us what is true.
Yet man is essentially a moral agent, and there is in that
immortal and unextinguishable yearning for something
pure and spiritual, which will plead against these poetical
sensualists as long as man remains what he is.'*'*"

We have grouped together these opinions of Words-
worth regarding the most illustrious of his contemporaries,
not only because our readers will be naturally anxious to
know what so great a man thought upon a subject of such
interest, but chiefly because they strongly illustrate that
characteristic of his genius which we have been endeavour-
ing to develope — that he could not appreciate any one who
did not belong to his own school. He does no more than
justice to the artistic skill and extraordinary powers of the
unhappy and misguided Shelly, whose works are truly
wonderful, when we remember that he died in his twenty-
ninth year. We think his remarks regarding Southey and
Moore, contain a good deal of truth, with this difierence,
however, that when he mentions the defects of the former, he
takes care to point out his merits, whilst he has neglected to
say, that, although some of the works of the latter may be
more gaudily ornamented than a severely chaste taste would
ap[)rove of, he hasi at least produced a series of Melodies
which are unequalled in any language. But his censure
of Byron and Goethe is so unjust, as altogether to defeat
itself. That Byron may be sometimes deficient in tender-
ness we are not prepared to gainsay, and the unhappy
course of his life was but too well calculated to produce
this result. But he is sometimes, as in the Dream, so
tender, that it is almost impossible to read him without

* Life, vol. ii. p. 477-8.

VOL. XXXI.-No. LXII. 2

330 WordswortlCs Life and Wriiifigs. [Dec.

tears. Still less are we inclined to defend the German
protestant"'^* writers in general, and Goethe in particular,
from the charge of profligacy and inhuman sensuality,
or to deny that they wantonly outrage the sympathies of
humanity. On the contrary we think that this charge is
perfectly well founded. Witness not only what has been
pointed out by Wordsworth, but the abominable Preface
to Biirger's Poems, which could not be translated in any
decent periodical in this country. But he is most unjust
to Gciethe, as well as to Byron ; for the genius of each
delighted in the grand and the terrible, and in these charac-
teristic excellencies they had no rival among their contem-
poraries. Wordsworth quotes, or rather misquotes, the
two first lines of the fourth canto of Childe Harold (for
Byron did not write I stood at Venice, but in Venice),
and says he could not have prevailed upon himself to print
them. He does not tell us why he would not print the
lines, but we suppose his objection must have been to the
word '' each,^' in the line, " A palace and a prison on
each hand,^' and certainly to call for a critical review of
so voluminous a writer as B.yron, '^ in^ order to guard
others against imitating him" for so trivial an error (if
indeed it docs go beyond the limits of poetic licence), is
unworthy of any person whose literary acquirements are
more extensive than those of a country' pedagogue. Both
Byron and Giiethe are the types of their respectiva
coiuitries, and of the times in which they lived. They
were at once the creatures and the leaders of a great
literary revolution. Each of them was by the bent of his
own genius, inclined to the antique and the classical, yet
did they become the very standard-bearers in the revolt
against the ancient system. At whatever time or in what-
ever country they had lived, they would have identified
themselves with the hterary character of that precise time
and country.

There was no such elasticity in the genius of Words-
worth. He took up a system which he believed to be
right, and clung to it throu<?h good and evil report with
the fidelity of a martyr. Desirous he certainly was of

* Wo insert the word advisedly, for that such a charge conld not
be preferred against tlie Catholic imaginative writers of Germany,
we need only mention the mo.'^st illustrious name of Jean Paal
llichter.

1851.] WordswofUi's Life and Writings. 331

popularity, but he disdained to seek it by falling in with
the taste of the times, which he scorned and despised.
He i^&und his writings treated with such contempt and
scorn Dy the literati of the day, and with such utter neg-
lect by the public, that he determined to set both at defi-
ance, and addressed himself almost exclusively to the
poor and the humble, to whom he sung of their own
passions, and of the beauties of nature amid which they
lived. They were only his present audience, for he never
lost faith in his own poetic powers, nor despaired of im-
mortality. But even when his unpopularity may be said
to have reached its highest point — when his poems were
neither bought nor read, and were never mentioned without
contempt, he thus writes to Lady Beaumont :

" I seo that you hava many battles to fight for mo — more than
in the ardour and coufidenco of your pure and elevated mind jou
had ever thought of being summoned to ; but be assured that this
opposition is nothing more than what I distinctly foresaw that you
and my other friends would have to encounter. It is impossible that
any expectation can be lower than mine concerning the immediate
efifect of this little work upon what is called the public. I do not
hero tako into consideration the envy and malevolence, and all the
bad passions which always stand in the way of a work of any
merit from a living poet, but merely think of the pure, absolute,
honest ignoranco, in which all worldlings of every rank and situ-
ation must be enveloped, with respect to the thoughts, feelings,
and images, on which the life of my poems depends. It is an awful
truth, that there neither is nor can be any genuine enjoyment of
poetry among nineteen out of twenty of those persons who live or
wish to live in the broad light of the world — among those who
either are or are striving to make themselves people of considera-
tion in society. This is a truth, and an awful one, because to be
incapable of a feeling of poetry, in my sense of the word, is to be
witliout love of human nature and reverence of God. I am not
afraid of censure, insignificant as probably the majority of those
poems would appear to very respectable persons. I do not mean
Loudon wits and witlings, for those have too many foul passions
about them to be respectable, even if they had more intellect than
the benign laws of Providence will allow to such a heartless exist-
ance as theirs is ; but grave, kindly-naturod, worthy persons, who
would be pleased if they could. I have expressed my calm confi-
dence that these poems will live to remove all disquiet from your
mind on account of the condemnation they may at present incur
from that portion of my contemporaries who are called the public.
Be assured that the decision of these persons has nothing to do
with the question ; they are altogether incompetent judges. These

332 Word^wortlis Life and Writings. [Dec.

people, in the senseless hurry of their idle live?, do not read book?,
they merely snatch a glance at them, that they may talk about
them. And even if this were not so. never forget what I believe
was observed to you by Coleridge, that every great and original
writer, in proportion as he is great or original, must himself create
the taste by which he is to be relished. To conclude, my ears are
stone-dead to this idle buzz, and my flesh as insensible as iron to
these petty stings ; and after what I have said, I am sure you
will be the same.***

la a letter to Montgomery the poet, and on various
other occasions, he maintains that an author should criti-
cise his own writings, and disregard the opinion of the
public. An author ought indeed to endeavour to come as
near the standard of perfection which he proposes to him-
self as possible, but criticise his own Avritings he cannot in
the proper sense of the term. As all writing is intended
not for the author himself, but for the public, undoubtedly
those to whom it is addressed, and in whose mmds it is
sought to make it take root and fructify, have the best
right to pronounce upon its merits. It is true that the first
impressions of the public are often fallacious, but perhaps
no author, unassisted by friendly or hostile criticism, ever
formed a just estimate of his own productions. What but
utter ignorance of the worthlessness of their works, aided
by wretched vanity, or some still more disreputable motive,
could induce so many authors to burthen the press with
such monstrous loads of sickly productions as are placed
upon it every day ? But even great authors are in general
if not always deceived as to the real merits of their own
writings. Shakspcare thought more meanly of his match-
less dramas, than CoUey Gibber did of his own productions.
Milton preferred ** Paradise Regained,'^ to "Paradise
Lost,'^ and not to mention innumerable other instances,
Byron seems to the very last to have considered the
** Hints from Horace'^ as his best work. ^ Words-
worth, although perhaps he did not acknowledge it even to
himself, was so far influenced by public opinion as to avoid
what might be called 'Mow,'' both in the selection of his
subjects, and in certain modes of expressing himself. But
he never learned that there might be genuine poetry out-
side of his own school, and although, as the extracts which
we have given from his letter to Lady Beaumont prove, he

♦ Life, vol. i. pp. 331-9.

1851.] Wordsworth's Life and Writings. 333

had been considerably embittered by the virulent and un-
just attacks which were made upon him ; yet we have no
doubt but that in condemning Byron and Goethe, he spoke
the genuine honest sentiments of his mind. He could not
sympathise with the grand and awful aspects of nature —
he only understood her when she spoke in accents of pity
or of love. We may add here that we consider his strange
disparagement of Burns's soul-stirring lyric, " Scots wha
ha^' a strong confirmation of what we have been saying.
It has been very truly said of Wordsworth, that " he
wrote as he lived and lived as he wrote, that his poetry had
its heart in his life, and his soul found a voice in his
poetry.** That life has now been written, and if any one
expects to find in it an interesting narrative of external
events, he will be grievously disappointed. Indeed we do
not remember to have ever read a life so utterly devoid of
incident. In matters of this kind the lives of many of his
neighbours even in the obscure valley in which he lived,
would, we have little doubt, have been more fertile than
Wordsworth^s. After reading the two volumes which
contain his life, very attentively, we can only find
three events which do not happen to every father of a
family. A vessel, in which he, his wife, and his sister
made the perilous voyage from Boulogne to Dover, struck
upon a sand bank in the harbour, he got his head cut by
a fall from his horse, and was thrown out of his gig by
coming in collision with a stage coach. Nor need the
reader expect to find here those lively and charming letters
so replete with the genius of the authors which give a
charm to the lives of Byron and of Southey. Words-
worth had indeed a perfect horror of letter writing. Writ-
ing to Sir George Beaumont in 1803, he says, ** I do not
know from what cause it is, but during the last three years
I have never had a pen in my hand for five minutes, before
my whole frame becomes one bundle of uneasiness ; a per-
spiration starts all over me, and my chest is oppressed in
a manner which I cannot describe.'**"' And about 1821 he
tells Archdeacon Wrangham, *^ I have so much to do with
writing in the way of labour and profession, that it is diffi-
cult to me to conceive how anybody can take up a pen but
from constraint. My writing-desk is to me a place of
punishment ; and as my penmanship sufficiently testifies,

♦ Life, vol. i. p. 262.

334 Word^worlJCs Life and Writings. [Dec.

99 V

I always bend over it with some degree of impatience.
On another occasion he tells one of his friends that he had
not for years written a letter, except on business, or to
some member of his own immediate family. ^ The letters to
Professor Reid of Philadelphia, and the reminiscences com-
municated by Mr. Justice Coleridge (nephew to the poet of
that name), and some other friends, which will be found to-
wards the end of the second volume, are the most interesting
remains of Wordsworth contained in his Life. The nume-
rous, but, for the most part, meagre accounts of the circum-
stances connected with the composition of his poems,
which he dictated for the satisfaction of a friend, and which
occupy no inconsiderable portion of the volumes contain-
ing his life, are too trivial, too much of a mere history of
dates and localities, and too like one another to interest
very much any one beyond his intimate acquaintances.

A judicious selection from these notices, which are
scattered through all his writings, should have been
made, but the two volumes of *' Wordsworth^s Memoirs"
have been **got up'* in a hurried and slovenly
manner. For instance, verses " upon the sight of a
beautiful picture, painted by Sir G. H. Beaumont,'* are

W'nted in a note, vol. i. p. 266, and in the text, p. 275.
e have before us numerous examples of the same intol-
erable carelessness on the part of the Editor. But on
the whole, we derived a great deal of pleasure fi'om the
perusal of these Memoirs, because they contain the history
of the poet's mind, and enable us to enter more fully into
the spirit of his compositions.

William Wordsworth was bom at Cockermouth, in
Cumberland, on the 7th of April, 1770. His father was
an Attorney. In 1778, his mother died :

** Early died
Mj honoured mother, she who was the heart
And hinge of all our yearnings and our loves :
She left us destitute."t

And he was soon afterwards, being then in his ninth year,
sent to school at Hawkshead, in Lancashire. The beauties
of the village, and of its lake and surrounding scenery, exer-
cised a powerful influence on his mind, and have called
forth frequent expressions of his admiration and love ;

t Vol. ii. p. 208. t Prelude, book ii. p. 117.

1851.] IVordsworih's Life and Writings. 336

" Fair seed-timo of mj soul, and I grow up
Fostered alike bj beauty and by fear ;
Much favoured in ray birth-place, and no less
In that beloved vale, to which ere long
Wo were transplanted,"*

" It was his habit to make the circuit of the lake
five miles, early before school hours, with one of his
school-fellows —

" Repeating favourite verses with one voice,
Or conning more, as happy as the birds
That with us chaunted."t

*"' The meadows, mountains, and twilight glens were his
play-ground. Fishing, skating, rowing, and hunting were
his games :

" Our pastime was on bright half- holidays.
To sweep along the plain of Windermere,
With rival oars. "J

*' He describes his own character at this period as
follows :

** Nothing at that time
So welcome, no temptation half so dear,
As that which urged me to a daring feat :
Deep pools, tall trees, black chasms and dizzy crags.
And tottering towers — I loved to stand and read
Their looks."

Indeed from his autobiographical memoranda, printed
in the second chapter of the ** Memoirs,'* he appears to
have been naturally of a very violent disposition. *' I
was," he says, **of a stiff, moody, and violent temper:
so much so, that I remember going once into the attics of
my grandfather's house at Penrith, upon some indignity
having been put upon me, with an intention of destroy-
ing myself with one of the foils which I knew was kept
there. I took the foil in hand, but my heart failed.
Upon another occasion, when my elder brother Richard
and I were whipping tops together in the large drawing
room, the walls of which were hung round with the
family pictures, I said to him, 'Dare you strike your
whip through that old lady's petticoat?' He replied.

• Prelude, b. ii. p. 17. t Ibid. p. 130. % Ibid. p. 35.

336 WordswortKs Life and Writings. [Dec.

. * No, I wont/ Then said I, 'here ^oes/ and I struck my
lash through her hooped petticoat/"-"

The country about Hawkshead was well calculated to
develope the exquisite sense of natural beauty which was

Possessed in a most unusual degree by Wordsworth,
n the evening he used to go to a spot called "the
Station," from which the finest prospect of the lakes
can be obtained. "So nauch," he says,t "used I to be
delighted with the view from it, while a little boy, that
some years before the first pleasure house was built, I
led thither from Hawkshead a youngster about my own
age, an Irish boy, who was a servant to an itinerant
conjuror. My motive was to witness the pleasure I ex-
pected the boy would receive froni the prospect of the
islands below and the intermingling water. I was not
disappointed." It was at Hawkshead he made his first
essay in poetry, and the " Lines left upon a seat in the
yew tree," near Esthwaite Lake, which are printed in
the first volume of his works, were in part composed here.
Wordsworth's father died in 1783. The orphan family
consisted of three sons, of whom William was the second,
and one daughter, who was not quite two years younger
than the poet. " My father," says Wordsworth, writing to
Sir George Beaumont, in 1805, " died intestate, when we
were children, and the chief part of his personal property,
after his decease, was expended in an unsuccessful attempt
to compel the late Lord Lonsdale to pay a debt of about
iJ5,000 to my father's estate. Enough, however, was
scraped together to educate us all in different ways. 1, the
second son, was sent to college, with a view to the profes-
sion of the church or the law ; into one of which I should
have been forced by necessity, had not a friend, (whose
name was Calvert,) left me iJ900. This bequest was from
a young man with whom, though I call him friend, I had
but little connection ; and the act was done entirely ou his
part, because he'thought I had powers and attainments
which might be of use to mankind. Upon the interest of
the £900, <£400 being laid out in annuity, with ,£200
deducted from the principal, and £I00 a legacy to my
sister, and £100 more which the " Lyrical Ballads" have
brought me, my sister and I contrived to live seven years,
— nearly eight. Lord Lonsdale then died, and the present

* Life, vol. i. p. 0. t Lifo, vol. i. p. 43.

1»1.] Wordsworth's Life and Writings. 337

Lord Lowther paid to my father's estate £8,500. Of this
sum I believe £1,800 a-piece will come to my sister and
myself; at least, would have come, but £3,000 was lent
out to our poor brother.^"' I mean, taken from the whole
sum, which was about £1,200 more than his share, which
£1,200 belonged to my sister and me. Whether it was
insured or not I do not know.'*

In 1787, Wordsworth, then in his eighteenth year,
entered St John's college, Cambridge. In the third and
sixth books of the Prelude, he has left a vivid picture of
the dislike, or rather, disgust, with which he regarded that
university. " He," says his biographer, (vol. i. p. 46-7,)
** had a clear sense of what was noble, just, and true. If,

♦ Captain Wordsworth, who with a groat proportion of the crew
was lost in the Abergavenny East Indiaman, which struck the
shambles of the Bill of Portland, on the 5th* of February, 1805. The
vessel carried £70,000 in specie, and the cargo was estimated at
£200,000. There were 204 persons on board. Wordsworth thus
writes of him to Sir George Beaumont, when he heard of the catas-
trophe : "I can Fay nothing higher of my ever dear brother than
that he was worthy of his sister, who is now weeping beside me, and
of the friendship of Coleridge ; meek, affectionate, silently enthusi-
astic, loving all quiet things, and a poet in everything but words."
His character is drawn under the name of Leonard in the poem of
*• the Brothers :"

" He had been reared
Among the mountains, and he in his heart
Was half a shepherd on the stormy seas.
Oft in the piping shrouds had Leonard heard
The tones of waterfalls, and inland sounds
Of caves and trees : — and when the regular wind
Between the tropics filled the steady sail,
Along the cloudless main, he in those hours
Of tiresome indolence, would often hang
Over the vesseFs side, and gaze and gaze ;
And while the broad blue wave and sparkling foam
Flashed round him, images and hues that wrought
In union with the employment of his heart
He thus by feverish passion overcome,
Even with the organs of his bodily eye.
Below him, in the bosom of the deep,
Saw mountains ; saw the forms of sheep that grazed
On verdant hills— with dwellings among trees,
And shepherds clad in the same country grey
Which he himself had worn.**

338 Wordsworth^ s Life and Writings. [Dec.

therefore, the tone of the university had been higher than
it was, if the lives of the members of the university, and espe-
cially of its rulers, had been holier, — if a spirit of dignified
selt-respect, and of severe self-denial, had breathed in their
deportment, — and if an adequate appreciation of what was
due to the memory and injunctions of their foundere and
benefactors, and a religious reverence for the inheritance
of piety, wisdom, and learning, bequeathed to them bj^ anti-
quity, had manifested itself in their practice, then, it can
hardly be doubted, the authentic influence of the academic
system would have made itself lelt by him. He felt him-
self to stand at a higher elevation of moral dignity than
some of his teachers. The youthful undergraduate looked
down upon some of his instructors.*^ He saw the morning
and evening services of his college, which he and his
fellow students were obliged to attend, neglected by those
who eat the bread of the founders, and " felt that there was
something like hollow mockery and profane hypocrisjr in
this.'* He has feelingly deplored this " Decay of Ancient
Piety,'' in a sonnet which will Jbe found in a subsequent

{►art of this article. In common with persons who in after
ife achieved a far greater and more imperishable fame, he
left college without having obtained any of its honours, and
harbouring aerainst it bitter hostility in his heart. The
works of the English poets, indeed, supplied no inconsi-
derable portion of his reading whilst in the university, and
he loved to retire to those groves and walks which he fondly
imagined must have been the favourite retreats of Chaucer,
Spencer, Ben Johnson, Milton, Cowley, and Dryden,
whilst they were at Cambridge :

" Whenever free to choose,
Did I, by night, frequent the college groves
And tributary walks."*

We may easily imagine with what delight the poet
returned in his vacations to his beloved vale of Esthwaite,
and to the society of his sister, who was tenderly and
devotedly attached to him. Of her he always speaks with
deep affection :

** My sister Emmeline and I,
Together chased the butterfly.

* Prelude, p. 138.

185L] Wordsworth's Life and Writings. 339

A very hunter did I rush

Upon the prey.

But she, God love her ! feared to brush

The dust from off its wiugs."

Again :

** She gave mo eyes, she gave me ears,
And humblo cares and delicate fears,
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears,

And love, and thought, and joy." *

•
Brougham castle, *^ a noble and picturesque ruin, distant
about a mile from Penrith, was a favourite resort of the
youthful poet and his sister:''

'* Those mouldering towers
Have seen us side by side, when having clomb
The darksome windings of a broken stair.
And crept along a ridge of fractured wall,
Not without trembling, we in safety looked
Forth, through some Gothic window's open space,
And gathered with one mind a rich reward
From the far-stretching landscape, by the light
Of morning beautified, or purple eve." t

Wordsworth, accompanied by Robert Jones, a fellow
collegian, spent his last college vacation in a pedestrian
tour m France. He quitted Dover for Calais on the 13th
of July, 1790 ; the eve of the day when the king took the
oath of fidelity to the new constitution. This tour supplied
materials for part of his autobiographical poem, (The
Prelude,) and for a poem entitled " Descriptive Sketches."
In January, 1791, he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts,
and quitted Cambridge. He resided four months in
London, and in May made a pedestrian tour through
North Wales, accompanied on this occasion also by Mr.
Jones. In November he again landed in France, and
remained there until the end of 1792, — one of the most
exciting periods of the Revolution ; — for during that time
the terrible Committees of Public Safety were constituted,
the king was thrown into prison, monarchy was abolished,
and the massacres of September were perpetrated. He
went to Paris and visited the scenes of these dreadful
atrocities within a month after they had taken place. Up

* Poems, vol. i. t Prelude, p. 144.

340 WordswortlCs Life and Writings. [Dec.

to this period he had been one of the most ardent and
enthusiastic admirers of the French Revolution. He

'\ Became a patriot, and his heart was all
Given to the people, and his love was theirs."'**

It is even insinuated by his biographer, (vol. i. p. 89,)
that his belief in the christian religion was at this time, if
not shaken, at least in imminent peril. " His mind,'* he
says, ** was whirled round and round in a vortex of doubt,
and appeared to be almost on the point of sinking into a
gulph of despair. His religious opinions^ were not very
clearly defined. He had too high an opinion of the suffi-
ciency of the human will, and too sanguine a hope of unli-
mited benefits to be conferred on society by the human
intellect. He had a good deal of stoical pride, mingled
with not a little Pelagian self-confidence. Having an
inadequate perception of the necessity of divine grace, he
placed his hopes where they could not stand, and did not
place them where, if placed, they could not fall. IJe sought
for ideal perfectibility where he could not but meet with
real frailty.'* But being reluctantly forced by business to
leave Pai'is, he was restored to the society of his sister,
who proved his better angel on this as on so many other
occasions during his life.

** Then it was
That the beloved sister, in whose sight
Those days were passed,
Maintained for me a saving intercourse
With my true solf."t

In 1793 he published " Descriptive Sketches'' — a poem
which he addressed to Jones, his fellow-traveller, and in
the same year, the " Evening Walk," the scene of which
is aniong the lakes of his own country. The latter was
dedicated to a young lady — his sister — as he tells us liimself
in the manuscript notes on his poems. Neither of these
poems attracted any attention. In 1797, '* The Borderers,'*
a tragedy, which he had composed about this period, was
offered to Mr. Harris, manager of Co vent Garden, but
says AVordsworth himself, the " piece was judiciously re-
turned as not calculated for the stage." It remained in
manuscript near fifty years, having been first published in

* Prelude, p. 245. t Prelude, p. 309.

1851.] WordswortKs Life and Writings. 341

1842. ^ He must have been greatly disappointed by the
rejection of his tragedy, for he and his sister had gone to
London, and remained three weeks, making alterations
suggested by one of the chief actors.

In the autumn of 1795, Wordsworth and his sister were
settled at Racedown Lodge, near Crewkerne in Dorsetshire,
where they employed themselves industriously in reading,
writing, and gardening, "for the place was very retired,
with little or no society, and a post only once a week.'*
" I think,'* Miss Wordsworth says, " Racedown is the
place dearest to my recollections upon the whole surface of
the Island ; it was the first home I had."-" In 1797 Cole-
ridge came to Racedown to visit Wordsworth, and the
latter, accompanied by his sister, returned with Coleridge
to Nether-Stowey, in Somersetshire, where he then lived.
So ardent a friendship grew up between the two poets, that
on the 14th of August in the same year, Wordsworth and
his sister moved to Alfoxden, which was near Nether-
Stowey. These three made several pedestrian tours dur-
ing the autumn. This was Wordsworth's favourite
amusement during his whole life. Southey, he says, was
so fond of books, that he used to declare, that if he had
been a Catholic, he would have become a Benedictine
Monk ; but of himself, he declares, that if he had been
born in that condition of life, he would infallibly have cho-
sen the occupation of a pedlar. He thus describes one of
these excursions (Life, vol. i. p. 107-8) : "I will here men-
tion one of the most noticeable facts in my own poetic
history and that of Mr. Coleridge. In the autumn of
1797, he, ray sister, and myself, started from Alfoxden
pretty late in the afternoon, with a view to visit Linton,
and the valley of stones near to it ; and, as our united
funds were very small, we agreed to defray the expense of
the tour by writing a poem, to be sent to the New Monthly
Magazine. In the course of this walk was planned the
poem of the * Ancient Mariner.' We began the com-
position together on that to me memorable evening. As
we endeavoured to proceed conjointly, our respective man-
ners proved so widely different, that it would have been
quite presumptuous in me to do anything but separate from
an undertaking upon which I could only have been a clog.
The * Ancient Mariner' grew and grew, till it became too

* Life, p. 94.

342 WordswortlCs Life and Writings, [Dec.

important for our first object, which was limited to our
expectation of five pounds, and we began to think of a
volume/* The result was the publication of a small 12mo*
volume of two hundred and ten pages, under the title of
"Lyrical Ballads,'* of which the first in order, the
" Ancient Mariner,** and a few other poems, were written
by Coleridge, but the greater number were from the pen
of Wordsworth. The edition consisted of five hundred
copies, but the publisher, Mr. Cottle of Bristol, says
in his Reminiscences (vol. ii. p. 20), *' the sale was so slow,
and the severity of most of the Reviews so great, that its
progress to oblivion seemed to be certain. I parted with
the largest proportion of them, five hundred, at a loss,
to Mr. Arch, a London bookseller.**

In 1798, Wordsworth, his sister, and Coleridge, set out
together for Germany. The latter however went to Giit-
tingen, wliilst Wordsworth and his sister took up their
residence in Goslar, for the purpose of learning the Ger-
man language. On their return to England in 1769,
Coleridge again joined them, and Wordsworth and ho
made a tour of the lakes, Miss Wordsworth remaining at
Sockburn until her brother returned. Wordsworth had
taken a small house at Grasmere for himself and his sister,
and he describes their journey to take possession of their
new home in a letter to Coleridge, which may convey
some idea of their feats of pedestrianism : " We were
now,[* he says,^* ** in Wcnsley Dale, and Dorothy and I set
off side by side to foot it as far as Kendal. We reached
Askrigg, twelve miles, before six in the evening, having
been obliged to walk the last two miles over hard frozen
roads, to the great annoyance of our ankles and feet.
Next morning the earth was covered with snow. It was
a beautiful morning with driving snow showers, and we
turned aside to see another waterfall. We had a t'lsk of
twenty-one miles to perform in a short winter's day.**

All this time Wordsworth was not idle, for he had written
a good deal of the large poem which has been published
since his death, under the title of the *' Prelude.** The sub-
ject was his own intellectual being — *'ihe growth of his
own mind. In it he reviews his own metaphysical his-
tory, from infancy through boyhood, school time, and col-
lege life ; his travels, his hopes, and his aspirations.** He

* Life, vol. i. p. 160.

1851.] Wordsworth's Life and Writings, 343

also wrote several smaller pieces, so that when the Lyrical
Ballads were reprinted in 1800, he was enabled to add a
second 12mo volurae. The price ofiPered by Messrs. Long-
man for two editions did not exceed one hundred pounds.
He presented a copy of them to C. J. Fox, in which he
says, " in common with the whole of the English people, I
have observed in your public character a constant pre-
dominance of sensibility of heart. This habit (of having
his heart open to individuals) cannot but have made you
dear to poets, and I am sure that if, since your first en-
trance into public life, there has been a single true poet
living in England, he must have loved you."

" In 1802," says Wordsworth, "I married Mary Hut-
chinson, at Brompton, near Scarborough. We had known
each other from childhood, and had practised reading
and spelling under the same old dame at Penrith."
After his marriage he dwelt at Townsend with his wife,
sister, and sister-in-law, Sarah Hutchinson, and in that
place three of his children were born. " In the spring
of 1808," he continues, *' the increase of our family
caused us to remove to a larger house, then just built,
Allan Bank, in the same vale, where our two younger
children were born, and who died at the rectory, the
house we afterwards occupied for two years. They died
in 1812, and in 1813 we came to Rydal Mount, where we
have since lived, with no further sorrow, till 1836, when
my sister became a confirmed invalid, and our sister,
Sarah Hutchinson, died."

His marriage did not alter his propensity for tra-
velling^, for we find that in 1803, he, his sister, and
Coleridge (for a part of the time), made a tour in Scot-
land. This afforded materials for many beautiful poems,
and though some of them relate to humble life, the style
is entirely free from that language of "real life," as he
called it, which impaired the effect of some of his earlier
poems. The following poem was written on a cottage-
girl, whose beauty is praised by both Wordsworth aild
his sister :

TO A HIGHLAND GIRL.

(at INVERSNEYDE upon LOCn LOMOND.)

** Sweet Iligliland girl, a very shower
Of beauty is thy earthly dower .'^
Twice soveu consenting years have shed
Their utmost bouuty on thy head :

344 WordswortlCs Life and Writings, [Dec,

And those grej rocks ; that household lawn ;

Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn ;

This fall of water, that doth make

A murmur near the silent lake :

This little bay, a quiet road

That holds in shelter thy abode ;

In truth, unfolding, thus, ye seem

Like something fashioned in a dream ;

Such forms as from their covert peep

When earthly cares are laid asleep !

Yet dream or vision as thou art,

I bless thee with a human heart :

God shield thee to thy latest years !

I neither know Thee, nor thy peers ;

And yet my eyes are filled with tears.

" With earnest feeling I shall pray
For thee when I am far away :
For never saw I mien, or face,
In which more plainly I could trace
Benignity and home-bred sense
Rip'ning in perfect innocence.
Here scattered like a random seed,
Remote from men, thou dost not need
The embarrassed look of shy distress,
And maidenly shamfacedness :
Thou wear*st upon thy forehead clear
The freedom of a mountaineer :
A face with gladness overspread !
Soft smiles, by human kindness bred !
And seemliness complete, that sways
Thy courtesies, about thee plays
With no restraint but such as springs
From quick and eager visi tings
Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach
Of thy few words of English speech :
A bondage sweetly brooted, a strife
That gives thy gestures grace and life !
So have I, not unmoved in mind.
Seen birds of tempest — loving kind —
Tims boating up against the wind.

** What hand but would a garden cull
For thee who art so beautiful !
0 happy pleasure ! here to dwell
Beside the6 in some heathy dell ;
Adopt your homely ways, and dress,
A shepherd, thou a shepherdess !

1861.] Wordsworth's Life and WriHngs. 346

But I could frame a wish for thee
More like a grave realitj :
Thou art to me but as a wave
Of the wild sea ; and I would have
Some claim upon thee, if I could,
Though but of common neighbourhood.
What joy to hear thee and to see !
Thy elder brother I would be,
Thy father — anything to thee !

'' Now thanks to Heaven ! that of its grace
Hath led me to this lonely place.
Joy have I had ; and going hence
I bear away my recompence.
In spots like these it is we prize
Our memory, feel that she hath eyes :
Then, why should I be loth to stir ?
I feel this place was made for her ;
To give new pleasure like the past,
Continued long as life shall last.
Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart,
Sweet Highland girl ! from thee to part ;
For I, methinks, till I grow old,
As fair before me shall behold.
As I do now, the cabin small.
The lake, the bay, the waterfall.
And Thee, the Spirit of them all !"— Vol. iii. p. 117.

We extract the following poems from the ''Memorials"
of this Scottish Tour :

"TO THE CUCKOO.

" 0 blithe new-comer ! I have heard, —
I hear thee and rejoice.
0 cuckoo ! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice ?

** While I am lying on the grass
Thy two-fold shout I hear,
That seems to fill the whole air's space.
As loud far-off as near.

" Though babbling only to the vale.
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

VOL..XXXI.-NO. LXII,

346 Wordsworth's Life and Writings. IDec

" Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring !

Even yet thou art to me

No bird ; but an invisible thing,

A voice, a mjsterj.

** The same whom in my school-boy days
I listened to ; that cry
Which made me look a thousand ways,
In bush, and tree, and sky.

" To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green ;
And thou wert still a hope, a love,
Still longed for — never seen.

" And I can listen to thee yet,
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

" 0 blessed bird ! the earth we pace

Again appears to bo

An unsubstantial, fairy place.

That is fit home for thee.''— (Vol. ii. p. 81.)

''WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF MACPHERSON'S

*OSSIAN.'

" Oft have I caught, upon a fitful breeze,

Fragments of far-off melodies.

With ear not coveting the whole,

A part so charmed the pensive soul :

While a dark storm before my sight

Was yielding, on a mountain height

Loose vapours have I watched, than won

Prismatic colours from the sun.

Nor felt a wish that heaven would show

The image of its perfect bow.

What need then of these fiuished straiuH ?

Away with counterfeit remains !

An Abbey in its lone recess,

A temple of the wilderness,

Wrecks though they be, announce with feelingy

The majesty of honest dealing.

Spirit of Ossian ! if imbound

In language thou may'st yet be found.

If aught, (intrusted to the pen,

Or floating on the tongues of men.

Albeit shattered and impaired,)

1851.] WwdswortKs Life and Writings. 347

Subsist thy dignity to guard,

In concert with memorial claim

Of old grey stone, and high-born name.

That cleaves to rock or pillared cave,

Where moans the blast, or beats the wave ;

Let Truth, stern arbitress of all,

Interpret that original.

And for presumptuous wrongs atone ; —

Authentic words be given, or none !

** Time is not blind ; — yet He who spares
Pyramid pointing to the stars,
Hath preyed with ruthless appetite
On all that marked the primal flight
Of the poetic ecstasy
Into the land of mystery.
No tongue is able to rehearse
One measure, Orpheus, of thy verse ;
Musaeus, stationed with his lyre.
Supreme among the Elysian quire.
Is for the dwellers upon earth.
Mute as a lark ere morning's birthr
Why grieve for these, though past away
The music, and extinct the lay ?
When thousands by severer doom,
Full early to the silent tomb
Have' sunk, at Nature's call ; or strayed
From hope and promise, self-betrayed ;
The garland withering on their brows ;
Stung with remorse for broken vows ;
Frantic — else how might they rejoice ?
And friendless, by their own sad choice !
Hail ! Bards of mightier grasp ! on you
I chiefly call, the chosen Few,
Who cast not off the acknowledged guide,
Who faltered not, nor turned aside ;
Whose lofty genius could survive
Privation, — under sorrow thrive ;
In whom the fiery muse revered
The symbol of a snow-white beard.
Bedewed with meditative tears
Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.

" Brothers in soul ! though distant times
Produced you nursed in various climes ;
Ye, when the orb of life had waned,
A plenitude of love retained ;
Hence while in you each sad regret
By corresponding hope was met,

348 Wordswortlis Life and Writings, [Dec

Ye lingered among human kind.
Sweet voices for the passing wind ;
Departing sunbeams, loth to stop,
Though smiling on the last hill top !
Such is the tender-hearted maid
Even ere her jojs begin to fade ;
Such, haplj, to the rugged chief,
By fortune crushed, or tamed bj grief,
Appears, on Morven's lonely shore,
Dim- gleaming through imperfect lore,
The son of Fingal ; such was blind ;
Mseonides of ampler mind ;
Such Milton, to the fountain head
Of glory by Urania led."— (Vol, v. p. 79.)

During the same year (1803) Wordsworth became
acquainted with Sir George Beaumont, Bart., a man of
fortune and a painter of some eminence. This friendship
was only interrupted by the death of Sir George, in 1827,
and Wordsworth reckons it amongst the chief blessings of
his life. Sir George was the intimate friend of Coleridge,
and had learned from that poet the desire which he and
Wordsworth had to reside near each other. To facilitate
this object, Sir George purchased Applethwaite, a beau-
tiful spot in the vicinity of Keswick, where Coleridge then
resided, and presented it to Wordsworth, whom lie had
never seen. Indeed, both these poets were more fortunate
than many of their brother bards in being saved from
poverty through the generosity of kind friends. Calvert
and Lord Lonsdale placed Wordsworth above indigence,
and Coleridge accepted from two^ of his friends — the
brothers Wedgwood — a permanent income of £160^ per
annum. Beaumont was the constant and generous friend
of both during his life, and at his death settled a pension
of £100 per annum on Wordsworth, to enable him to make
an annual tour. But his design of bringing the friends
together failed, in consequence of the state of Coleridge's
health, which forced him to seek the milder air of Sicily
and Malta.

Wordsworth had been for some years engaged in the exe-
cution of a great poem — ^great at all events in size — which
was to consist of three parts. He thus explains the matter
himself in a letter to Sir George Beaumont, dated Dec.
25th, 1804 : In this first poem, which was to be called " The
Recluse/' he says, " It will be my object to express in

1851.] Wordsworth's Life and Writings. 349

verse my most interesting feelings concerning man, nature,
and society. Next, a poem, (in which I am at present
chiefly engaged,) on my earlier life, or the growth of my
own mind, taken up upon a large scale. This latter work
I expect to have finished before the month of May ; and
then I purpose to fall with all my might on the former,
which is the chief object on which my thoughts have been
fixed these many years. Of this poem, (The Recluse,)
that of ' The Pedlar,' which Coleridge read you, is part;
and 1 may have written of it altogether about two thou-
sand lines. '* (vol. i. p. 304.) Writmg to the same gentle-
man on the 3rd of June, 1805, he announces the conclu-
sion of the poem on the growth of his own mind. In his
earlier years Wordsworth had been an enthusiastic repub-
lican. This letter shows us that he was now completely
apathetic regarding politics, and we shall see that in his
old age he became an uncompromising Tory, and a strong
partizan of religious intolerance. "1,^* he says, "have
just been reading two newspapers full of factious brawls
about Lord Melville and his delinquencies, ravages of the
French in the West Indies, victories of the English in the
East, fleets of ours roaming the seas in search of enemies
whom they cannot find, &c. &c., and I have asked mj^self
more than once lately if my affections can be in the right
place, caring as I do so little about what the world seems
to care so much for. All this seems to me a tale told by
an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I
have finished mjr poem a fortnight ago.'' (V^- i- ?• 309-10.)

The poem which he had finished at this time was that
in which he gives the history of his own mind. It remained
in manuscript forty years, and was not published until
after the author's death. He did not himself give any
name to this poem, but it was published in 1820 under the
title of "The Prelude."

The other great poems on which he was engaged at the
same period, are " The Recluse," of which he executed
the first book ; it takes up the thread of his personal his-
tory where '* The Prelude ' ends, and after describing his
residence at Grasmere, propounds the subject of the third
poem, in which he expresses his feelings upon man and
nature. " The Recluse" is still in manuscript, with the
exception of that portion of it which has been printed as an
introduction to the third poem, which the author originally
called " The Pedlar," a name which he was very judiciously

360 Wordsworth'' s Life and Writings. LDec,

advised to abandon, and it was printed with the less unpo-
etical title of "'The Excursion." Wordswoith himself
says, in the preface to '* The Excursion/' that it is only a
part of " The Recluse'' which is still unpublished, and
which, as far as we can gather from the Life before us, was
never finished according to the original design of the
author. We think this is favourable to the poet's fame ;
for if '' The Prelude," " The Recluse," and " The Excur-
sion"— which are in reality one poem — ^had beenpubUshed
at the same time, and as one work, they would have
formed such an enormous mass of blank verse, that we are
fully convinced, no one beyond the poet's own family and
friends would have ever ventured on the task of reading it.
But the only portion of the poem which was published
during the poet's life was " The Excursion," audit did not
appear until 1814.

In the meantime, he published in 1807 two small
duodecimo volumes of poetry. They were received, if
possible, with ^eater disiavour than his earlier productions.
By the periodicals they were treated with contempt and
scorn, by the people they were so utterly neglected that it
took eight years to dispose of an impression, which did not
exceed five hundred copies. At this time he seems him-
self almost to have despaired of popularity ; *for he says to
Sir Georffe Beaumont : " No poem of mine will ever be
popular.' (Life, vol. i. p. 340.) But he never doubted his
own powers, never wavered in his fidelity to what he con-
sidered the essential characteristics of his own school, and
never entirely departed from, although he greatly modified,
the plan which he originally proposed to himself. Perhaps
the very harshness with which he was treated induced him
to retain some real blemishes against his better judgment.
These were eagerly seized on, and held up to the ndicule
of the multitude. On no other principles can we explain
the unpopularity of volumes which contained such beau-
tiful poems as this :

'* I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd, —

A host of golden daffodils

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

" Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,

1851.] Wordsworth's Life and Wntmgs. 361

Thej stretched in neyer-ending line
Along the margin of a bay ;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

** The waves beside them dancbd, but thej

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee ;

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company ;

I gazed, and gazed — but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought.

** For oft, when on my couch I lie.

In vacant or in pensive mood.

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude ;

And then my heart with pleasure fills.

And dances with the daffodils." — ^Vol. ii. p. 93.

This volume contained the poem already quoted, '' She
was a Phantom of Delight/' and manv others of equal
merit. We shall insert here another of his minor poems,
composed at a later period, — "the Wishing-Gate :'*

^* Hope rules a land for ever green ;

All powers that serve the bright-eyed Queen

Are confident and gay ;
Clouds at her bidding disappear :
Points she to aught-~the bliss draws near,

And Fancy smoothes the way.

*< Not such the land of wishes : — there
Dwell fruitless day-dreams, lawless prayer,

And thoughts with things at strife ;
Yet how forlorn, should ye depart,
Te superstitions of the hearty

How poor were human life !

« When magic lore abjured its mighty
Te did not forfeit one dear right,

One tender claim abate ;
Witness this symbol of your sway.
Surviving near the public way.

The rustic Wishing-gate !

«* Inquire not if the fairy race
Shed kindly influence on the place.

Ere northward they retired ;
If here a warrior left a spell,
Panting for glory as he fell ;

Or here a saint expired.

liir;

52 Wordsworth's Life and Wrlllfigi. [Dec*

" Enough that all around is fair,
Composed with Nature's finest care,

And in her fondest love, —
Peace to embosom, and content.
To overawe the turbulent.

The selfish to reprove." — Vol. ii. p. 200.

In 1811 Wordsworth went to reside at the parsonage at
Grasmere, where two of his children, Catharine and
Thomas, died. This induced him to leave the place ; and
in 1813 he went to Rydal Mount, which is about two miles
from Grasmere, and in this place he resided till his death,
in 1840. In the same year he was appointed, through the
influence of Lord Lonsdale, to the distributorsnip of
stamps in the county of Westmorland ; a situation from
which he derived an income of a little more than £500 per
annum. To this nobleman he dedicated " The Excursion/'
which he published in the following year.

We have already mentioned, that the original name of
this poem was " The Pedlar,' ' and the hero, or whatever
the principal character — The Wanderer — ^should be called,
is a member of that not very aristocratic confraternity.
Wordsworth himself thus explains his reason for selecting
a Pedlar for his hero : '* My lamented friend, Southey, (for
this is written a month after his decease) used to say, that
had he been a Papist, the course of life which in all proba^
bility would have been his, was the one for which he was
most fitted, and most to his mind — that of a Benedictine
monk, in a convent furnished, as many a one was, with aa
inexhaustible library. Books, as appears from many pas-
sages in his writings, and was evident to those who nad
opportunities of observing his daily life, were, in fact, his
passion; and wandering, I can with truth affirm, was
mine. Had I been born in a class which would have
deprived me of a liberal education, it is not unUkely that,
bemg strong in body, I should have taken to a way of life
such as that in which my Wanderer passed the m-eater

f)art of his days. At all events, I am here called upon
reely to acknowledge, that the character I have repre-
sented in his person is chiefly an idea of what I fancied my
own character might have become in his circumstances.''

The Wanderer being, therefore, avowedly the author
himself, we shall allow him to draw his own portrait, both
because we believe it to be, in most respects, a faithful
representation of the original, and because it will enable us

1851.] Wordsworth's Life and Writings. 353

at the same time to lay before the reader a few extracts
from the greatest of his productions :

" So the foundations of his mind were laid.
In such communion not from terror free,
While jet a child, and long before his time,
Had he perceived the presence and the power
Of greatness ; and deep feelings had impressed
Great objects on his mind, with portraiture
And colour so distinct, that on his mind
The J lay like substances, and almost seemed
To haunt the bodily sense.

" He thence attained
An active power to fasten images
Upon his brain ; and on their pictured lines
Intensely brooded, even till they acquired
The liveliness of dreams. Nor did he* fail
While yet a child, with a child's eagerness,
Incessantly to turn his ear and eye
On all things which the moving seasons brought
To feed such appetite ; nor this alone
Appeased his yearning : — in the after-day
Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn.
And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags
He sate ; and even in their fixed lineaments.
Or from the power of a peculiar eye.
Or by creative feeling overborne.
Or by predominance of thought oppressed,
Even in their fixed and steady lineaments
He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind.
Expression ever varying ! Thus informed.
He had small need of books ; for many a tale
Traditionary round the mountains hung.
And many a legend peopling the dark woods,
Nourished Imagination in her growth.
And gave the mind that apprehensive power
67 which she is made quick to recognise
The moral properties and scope of things.

" In his heart.
Where fear sat thus a cherished visitant,
Was wanting yet the pure delight of love
By sound diffused, or by the breathing air.
Or by the silent looks of happy things.
Or flowing from the universal face
pf earth and sky. But he had felt the power ,

Of Nature, and already was prepared,

354 Wardswarth's Life and Writings. [DeC-

By his intense conceptions, to receive

Deeply the lesson deep of love which he,

Whom Nature, by whatever means, has taught

To feel intensely, cannot but receive.

Such was the Boy — but for the growing youth

What soul was his, when, from the naked top

Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun

Rise up, and bathe the world in light ! He looked —

Ocean and Earth, the solid frame of Earth,

And Ocean's, liquid mass, beneath him lay

In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touched.

And in their silent faces could be read

Unutterable love. Sound needed none,

Nor any voice of joy ; his spirit drank

The spectacle : sensation, soul, and form

All melted into him ; they swallowed up

His animal being ; in them did he live,

And by them did he live ; they were his life.

In such access of mind, in such high form

Of visitation from the living God,

Thought was not, in enjoyment it expired.

No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request ;

Rapt into still communion that transcends

The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.

His mind was a thanksgiving to the power

That made him ; it was blessedness and love !

Still uppermost

Nature was at his heart as if he felt.

Though yet he knew not how, a wasting power

In all things that from her sweet influence

Might tend to wean him. Therefore with her hues,

Her forms, and with the spirit of her forms,

He clothed the nakedness of austere truth.

While yet he lingered in the rudiments

Of science, and among her simplest laws,

His triangles — they were the stars of heaven.

The silent stars ! Oft did he take delight

To measure the altitude of some tall crag

That is the eagle's birth-place, or some peak

Familiar with forgotten years, that shows.

Inscribed, as with the silence of the thought,

Upon its bleak and visionary sides.

The history of many a winter storm,

Or obscure records of the path of fire.

And thus before his eighteenth year was told,

Accumulated feelings pressed his heart

With still increasing weight ; he was o'erpowered

By Nature, by the turbulence subdued

1851.] WordswortKs Life and Writings. 355

Of his own mind ; bj mysterj and hope,

And the first virgin passion of a soul

Communing with the glorious universe.

Full often wished he that the winds might rage

When they were silent : far more fondly now

Than in his earlier season did he love

Tempestuous nights — the conflict and the sounds

That live in darkness

Birds and beasts
And the mute fish that glances in the stream,
And harmless reptile coiling in the sun,
And gorgeous insect hovering in the air,
The fowl domestic, and the household dog-^
In his capacious mind be loved them all :

Rich in love

And sweet humanity, he was himself
To the degree that he desired, beloved.''

These passages give a true and vivid picture of Words-
worth's mind, and are a fair specimen of his poetic powers.
Grand or sublime they cannot be called, but they express
with great beauty the feelings of a man who sympathises
deeply with the ideal, as well as the real beauties, of
external nature. We are never startled and charmed by
such a glorious image as Satan ascending through bound-
less space like a pillar of fire, but we everywhere read the
lesson of charity and love which is hidden under the
beautiful forms of this visible creation. " The Excursion,''
though by no means free from the vices of Wordsworth's
school of poetry, is yet disfigured by very few of them.
This becomes more remarkable when we remember that
all the characters are taken firom humble life. Yet such
was the unpopularity of Wordsworth's pause, that " The
Excm'sion' appeared, for a long time, likely to sink into
oblivion with his previous publications. " It is a remark-
able fact," says his biographer, (vol. ii. p. 51,) *' that the
English public was content|fwith a single edition of the
Excursion, consisting of only 500 copies for six years.
Another edition, also limited to 500 copies, was published
in 1827, and satisfied the popular demand for seven years."
At the same time it was unsparingly assailed in the most
celebrated reviews, and received, almost without excep-
tion, unqualified condemnation from them. A few faith-
ful friends stood by Wordsworth, and one of these, Robert
Southey, on hearing that a celebrated critic was boasting
that he had crushed *'The Excursion/* exclaimed, ''He

356 WordswortJCs Life and Writings. [Dec.

crush The Excursion ! Tell him he might as well fancy
that he could crush Skiddaw/^ Wordsworth himself was
not discouraged, although he was certainly greatly disap-
pointed, for he says in a letter to Southey : *' Let the age
continue to love its own darkness; I shall continue to
write, with, I trust, the light of heaven upon me.'*

But Wordsworth had not abandoned the darling vices
of his school, he had only laid them aside for a season, to
be again embraced with renewed faith and fervour. In the
year after **The Excursion*' appeared, (1818) he published
''The White Doe of Rylstone. ' It is in rhyme, and, per-
haps, may be called a tale, thoug^h, indeed, it scarcely
deserves that name. The heroine is either the White Doe
herself, or the daughter of Norton, who, with all his sons,
was put to death for rebeUing against queen Elizabeth.
" Everything '* says Wordsworth, (Life, vol, ii. p. 56,) "that
is attempted by the principal personages in the White Doe
fails y so far as its object is external and substantial:
so far as it is moral and spiritual it succeeds. The heroine
of the poem knows that her duty is not to interfere with
the current of events, either to forward or delay them ; but

*' To abide
The shock, and finally secure
O'er pain and grief a triumph pure."

Or as he expresses it elsewhere in the poem :

'* By force of sorrows high
Uplifted to the purest sky
Of undisturbed mortality.*'

We are not quite clear as to the meaning of these lines,
but at all events, the lady after the massacre of her entire
family becomes at first distracted, but ultimately takes up
with a White Doe, in whose company she wanders through
the country until she dies.^ Of this Doe, personally, we
are told nothing, but that she used to attend church on
Sunday, always, we presume, waiting for the sermon, and
that she was ** daughter of the eternal Prime.'' The last
couplet in the poem is addressed to her :

*' Thou, thou art not a child of time
But daughter of the eternal Prime."

We are unfortunately in the predicament of a celebrated
critic, who said long ago, that this, he presumed, was a

1861.] WardswoTtKs Life and Writings. 357

very high compliment, but that he had not the honour to
understand it. Wordsworth declares that the White Doe
is the highest of all his poems in point of conception. For
our part we look upon the conception as exceedingly low,
not to say foolish, and that we would consider a young
lady much better employed in saying her prayers, than in
wandering up and down the country with a White Doe.
Such a conception could never have entered into the min d
of a CathoUc. He would indeed have found it necessary
to make such a bereaved and desolate sufferer retire from
the busy scenes of life, but instead of giving her up to a
White l)oe, he would have devoted her to the service of
Grod amongst a sisterhood of religious ladies.

Nor is the execution superior to the conception, for it is
full of the worst vices of the Wordsworthian school of
poetry, as for instance — and these instances are taken
quite at random : —

** Fast as the churchyard fills anon
Look again and they are all gone.
They cluster round the porch and the folk
Who sat in the shade of the prior *8 oak!
And scarcely have they disappeared
Ere the prelusive hymn is heard,
"With one consent the people rejoice
Filling the Church with a lofty voice."

Vol. iv. p. 48.

** What harmonioiis pensive changes
Wait upon her as she ranges." — p. 50.

''But now again the people raise

With awful cheer a voice of praise," — ^p. 63.

** Who dragged Earl Pembroke from Barnsley Church
And smote off Jiis head on the stones of the porch.*' — ^p. 56.

**He spake the hare truth for far and near,
From every side come noisy swarms." — p. 70.

It would be very easy, though frequently imjust, to ridi-
cule almost any portion of Wordsworth's poetry, by turning
it into prose. But these passages, as well as a great many
others m '*the White Doe" are not only prose, but very
bad prose. Some of the expressions would be considered
low even in common conversation, and many of the epithets
are totally misapplied. It is one of Wordsworth's greatest
faults, that he relies too much upon his own individual
taste, and does not scruple to shock the ear, and even the

358 WordswortlCs Life and Writings. [Dec,

sensibility of the most refined of his readers, by assimi-
lating things which have no connexion but in his own over-
refined imagination. He seldom rejected an epithet,
although he was conscious that it would appear to be
absurd to the generality of readers, provided its truth could
be perceived by a close and highly-imaginative observer of
nature; forgetting that the pleasing effect is derived far
more from the harmony than from the mere brilliancy of
the colouring. Thus, the voices of a congregation singing
the praises of God may very truly be called ''a cheer;
nor would we venture to say that there is anything false to
nature in another celebrated passage, when he says of a
fish, that it gives *' in the lonely tarn a solitary cheer. ^\ But
in neither case can the similitude be carried out without
becoming ridiculous. A congregation unites in praying
to God or in praising Him, but it certainly does not cheer
Him. So long as these things were paraded as '* Words-
worth's beauties" by his friends, and as the characteristics
of his poetry by his foes, (and both continued for a very
long period,) he remained unpopular and unknown. But
at length, and when many years had passed, even after the
publication of his best poems, individuals who possessed
true taste began to discover that these passages were, in
fact, Wordsworth's defects — that they were the blemishes
of his muse, which were amply atoned for by many exqui-
site beauties.

Wordsworth had, however, to struggle through a long
life against coldness and contempt ; for we find by a letter
written to Mr. Moxon in August, 1833, that he could not
be called even then a popular writer. But his fame
steadily increased, and the curcle of his admirers gradually
included most of those who had distinguished themselves
in literature. It is strange how greatly he was deceived as
to his proper audience. He took most of his themes fipom
the poor, and declared that they alone could appreciate
true poetry. It was for them he wrote, and by them he
hoped to be appreciated ; and yet his works are still almost
unknown among the humbler classes, and his fame is per-
haps more exclusively confined to the educated portion of
the commimity than is that of any of his contemporaries.
Writing to Robert Montgomery in 1835, he says,
** Do not, my dear Sir, be anxious about any individual's
opinion concerning your writings, however highly you may
think of his genius or rate his judgment. I press this

1851.] Wordsworth's Life and Writings. 359

reflection upon you, as it has supported me through life,
that posterity will settle all accounts justly, and that works
which deserve to last will last ; and if undeserving this
fate, the sooner they perish the better/'

In 1839— the 69th of his age — ^Wordsworth was honoured
by the University of Oxford with the degree of D.C.L.
His own feelings on the occasion are expressed in the
following letter to Mr. Peace, of Bristol, dated August
30th, 1839 :

" It was not a little provoking that I had not the plea-
sure of shaking you by the hand at Oxford, when you did
me the honour of coming so far to join in the shout. I was
told by a Fellow of University College, that he had never
witnessed such an outburst of enthusiasm in that place
except upon the occasions of the visits of the Duke of
Wellington — one unexpected." " What a contrast,' ' says
his biographer, "was this to the reception which a few
years before he had experienced from the most celebrated
critics in England, and from the literary world at large T'
(vol. ii. p. 358.)

In 1842 Wordsworth resigned the office of Stamp Dis-
tributor, having previously, through the influence of the
Prime Minister, (Sir Robert Peel), obtained the appoint-
ment for his son William. Sir Robert wrote to the
poet on this occasion in the most friendly and respectful
manner, assuring him that he had the greatest personal
satisfaction in promoting the arrangement; and on the
16th of August, in the same year, he again wrote to inform
him that he had placed " his honoured name on the Civil
List for an annual provision of three hundred pounds/' In
the foUoTving year, the Right Hon. Baronet had another
opportunity of manifesting his affection and esteem for the
venerable poet. Southey, who had been for some time in a
pitiable state of imbeciUty, died on the 21st of March, 1843,
and on the 31st of that month Wordsworth received a letter
from the Lord Chamberlain, informing him that he had the
command of the Queen to offer him the vacant office of Poet
Laureate. The venerable bard declined to accept the
appointment, alleging as his apology his advanced age,
and that he could not undertake the duties which it would
impose upon him. But Sir Robert Peel again interposed
his good offices, and induced him to accept of the appoint-
ment, by the following letter, which he wrote from his place
in the House of Commons, on the 3rd of April, 1843 :

360 WordsworllCs Life and Writings. [Dec.

" My dear Sir,

*' J hope you may bo induced to re-consider your decision
MfiiYi regard to the appointment of Poet Laureate. The offer waa
made to you not for the purpose of imposing on you any onerous
or disagreeable duties, but in order to pay you that tribute of
respect which is justly due to the first of living poets. The Queen
entirely approved of the nomination, and there is one unanimous
feeling on the part of all who have heard of the proposal (and it is
pretty generally known), that there could not be a question about
the selection. Do not be deterred by the fear of any obligation
which the appointment may be supposed to imply. I will under-
take that you shall have nothing required from you. But as the
Queen can select for this honourable appointment no one whose
claims for respect and honour, on account of eminence as a poet,
can be placed in competition with yours, I trust you will not longer
hesitate to accept it.

" Most faithfully yours,

"Robert Peel."

Thus Wordsworth lived to receive in his old age that
fame, for which he had laboured so strenuously and
courageously during a long life, and which he had not
long before despaired of obtaining, except from posterity.
On the 7th of April, 1844, above one hundred and fifty
adults, and three hundred children, in their holiday attire,
assembled at Rydal M^^^^t to celebrate his birthday. Yet
this very fame, for which he had endured so much, and
for which he had so eagerly panted, now that he possessed
it appeared to him to be almost utterly worthless. In his
youth he considered the applause which he expected firom
posterity, amply sufficient to compensate for the neglect
of his contemporaries, but in his old age he frequently
expresses the utmost indifference respecting posthumous
fame. Writing to professor Reed of Fhiiadelphiay he
says, '* Your letters are naturally turned upon the impres-
sion which my poems have made, and the estimation they
are held, or are likely to be held in, through the vast
country to which you belong. I wish 1 could feel as lively
as you do upon this subject, or even upon the ^neral
destiny of those works. Pray do not be long surprised at
this declaration. There is the difference of more than the
length of your life, I believe, between our ages. I am
standing on the brink of that vast ocean I must sail so
soon ; I must speedily lose sight of the shore, and I could
not once have conceived how little I now am troubled by

1861.] Wordsworth's Life and Writings. 361

the thought'of how long, or how short a time they who
remain on that shore, may have sight of me/^ It is,
indeed, a lesson worthy to be learned by those who seek for
happiness, and rest their utmost hopes in this world, that
all it can bestow will appear utterly worthless when they
stand on the brink of eternity.

Wordsworth, as we have seen, commenced life as a
strong republican, and ardent admirer of the French
Revolution. He had now passed from political indiflFerent-
ism into strong and almost unreasoning Toryism. In a
letter, dated May 15th, 1834, he says, '' Since the night
when the Reform Bill was first introduced, I have been
convinced that the institutions of the country cannot be
preserved." He strenuously opposed the concession of
Catholic Emancipation ; he objected to corporate reform, to
a state provision for the education of the poor, and,
indeed, to every innovation in the institutions of the
country. But Wordsworth's prejudices did not so far
blind him, as to render him incapable of seeing the beauty
and the merits of that Church which alone had preserved
Christianity. Indeed, it would be strange if a genius such
as his had not sympathized with that glorious old Church,
whose ritual is so full of pure and impassioned poetry ; and
if the splendour of her story, so deeply interwoven with all
that is dearest and holiest upon earth, had not dispelled
its prejudices, and taught it to prefer the gorgeous worship
of the Catholic Church, which appeals so powerfully to
the imagination and to the heart, to the cold and barren
forms of Protestantism. Although his "Ecclesiastical
Sonnets" are by no means untainted by the usual preju-
dices of Reformers, yet do they contain many just and
glowing eulogiums on that old Church, which we still
behold, like a bright and hopeful star, shining high above
the gloom and darkness of bye-gone ages. It is thus she
appeared to Wordsworth, whose writings contributed in no
small degree to procure for her respect and reverence, and

Save no slight impulse to that great movement, which is
riving back so many into the one fold, under the one
shepherd.

We wish that space permitted us to illustrate this ten-
dency by a selection from the '^ Ecclesiastical Sonnets,"
which, although amongst the best in the language,
are, we fear, not at all so generally known as they

VOL. XXXI.-No. LXII. 4

362 WordswortlCs DJe and Writings, [Dec.

deserve. It is necessary to observe, that these son-
nets are divided into three parts. The first relates to the
introduction of Christianity into Britain, the holy lives of
the early Saxon clergy, and the Crusades; the second
extends to the close of the troubles in the reign of Charles ;
the third comprises the remaining period from the Restora-
tion to the present time. We can only make room for the
following on " The Dissolution of the Monasteries/' and
the kindred subjects of the Saints and the Blessed Virgin :

" Threats come which no submission may assuage.

No sacrifice avert, no power dispute ;

The tapers shall be quenched, the belfries mute,

And 'mid their choirs unroofed by selfish rage,

The warbling wren shall find a leafy cage.

The gadding bramble hang her purple fruit,

And the green lizard and the gilded newt

Lead unmolested lives, and die of age.

The owl of evening and the woodland fox

For their abode the shrines of Waltham choose ;

Proud Glastonbury can no more refuse

To stoop her head before these desperate shocks —

She whose high pomp displaced, as story tells,

Arimathcan Joseph's wattled cells.

** The lovely nun (submissive, but more meek

Througli saintly habit than from efibrt due

To unrelenting mandates, that pursue

With equal wrath the steps of strong and weak)

Goes forth — unveiling timidly a cheek

Sufifused with blushes of celestial hue.

While through the convent's gate to open view

Softly she glides, another home to seek.

Not Iris, issuing from her cloudy shrine,

An apparition more divinely bright ;

Not more attractive to the dazzled sight

Those watery glories, on the stormy brine

Poured forth, while summer suns at distance shine,

And the green vales lie hushed iu sober light !"

« SAINTS.

" Ye too must fly before a chasing hand
Angels and saints, in every hamlet mourned !
Ah ! if the old idolatry be spurned,
Let not your radient shapes desert the land !
Her adoration was not your demand, —

1851.] Wordsworth's Life and Writings. 363

The fond heart proffered it — the servile heart ;

And therefore arc ye summoned to depart,

Michael, and thou, St. George, whose flaming brand

The dragon quelled ; and valiant Margaret,

Whose rival sword a like opponent slew ;

And rapt Cecilia, seraph-haunted queen

Of harmony ; and weeping Magdalene,

AVho in the penitential desert met

Gales sweet as those that over Eden blew !*'

"THE VIRGIN.

** Mother ! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied ;
Woman, above all women glorified ;
Our tainted nature's solitary boast ;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost ;
Brighter than eastern skies at day-break strewn
With fancied roses ; than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast,
Thy image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween.
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,
As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee
Of mother's love and maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene !"

Many, perhaps we should say all pious Protestants
share these vam regi'ets. But the establishment is so far
from resuming the '^ graceful rites and usages'* of the old
Church, that it is every day losing even those which it at
first retained, and is rapidly hastening into frigid Calvin-
ism. The more zealous of its ministers, who still
proudly cling to that ritual which excites *^ a stir of mind
too natural to deceive,'* and gives " the memory help
when she would weave a crown for hope,*' are regarded as
papists in disguise by ^ the boasted lights,*' which are,
indeed, but the *' fiery lights" of the establishment.

Wordsworth had five children, John, Dora, Thomas,
Catherine, and William. Of these Thomas and Catherine,
as we have seen, died whilst very young, and the family of
the poet consisted of the remaining three, together with
his wife, his sister, and sister-in-law, Sarah Hutchinson.
Never was there a more loving or a more united family.
The poet was almost worshipped by his own domestic

364 TVordsworilis Dfe and Writinfp. [Dec*

circle, and he returned their affection in no niggardly or
stinted measure :

** Rich in love
And sweet humanity, he was himself
To the degree that he desired, beloved."

They, his first enthusiastic and almost sole admirers,
saw his fame gradually rival that of his most illustrious
contemporaries. They saw honorary degrees conferred on
him by the universities of Durham and Oxford, and a
majority of votes recorded in his favour in opposition to
the Prime Minister, (Lord John Russell,) for the Lord .
Rectorship of Glasgow. He was visited at Rydal by the
most eminent and most illustrious persons in the land,
amongst others, by the late Queen Dowager and her
sister, and was received at court by her M^e'sty the
Queen, with the most flattering distinction, when he went
to thank her for his appointment to the Laureateship. Yet
at this very culminating point of his fame, he was destined
to feel that neither the gifts of genius, nor the applause of
mankind, nor the smiles of princes, can confer happiness.
His sister, the '^Winsome Marrow,^' who accompa-
nied him on so many romantic pedestrian excursions
became a confirmed invalid, unable to stir from her bed, or
couch. His sister-in-law, Sarah Hutchinson, died, and in
his letters he feelingly deplores the ravages which death
and disease had made amongst his other friends and rela-
tions. But the severest stroke of all was the death of his
only and adored daughter, Dora. She was married in
1841, being then in her thirty-seventh year, to Edward
Quillinan, a widower of fifty; but her health was so
delicate, that in 1845 she and her husband were obliged to
seek a more genial climate in Portugal and Spain. In
1846 they came home, fondly imagining that Mrs. Quil-
linan's health was fully restored, but she died on the 9th
of July, 1847, being little more than a year after her return
to her native vale. It does not require the testimony of
his biographer to prove that his only daughter was dearer
to Wordsworth than any other earthly object, for the
frequent mention of her, which occurs in his works, proves
the depth and constancy of his affection. Writing to Mr.
Moxon, a month after her death, he says, " We bear up
under our afiiiction as well as God enables us to do ; but,
oh ! my dear friend, our loss is immeasurable/' And

1851,] Father GeniUi. 365

again, 29tli December, 1847, he writes, " Our sorrow is,
1 feel, for life; but God's will be done/' When it was
thought right to inforni Wordsworth himself of his
approaching dissolution, his wife announced the sad tidings
to him on the 20th of April, 1850, in these words,
"William, you are going to Dora;" and when, twenty-
four hours later, one of his nieces was drawing aside the
curtains, he said, as if awakening from a quiet sleep, " Is
that Dora?" Two days afterwards he expired, the name
of his beloved daughter having been the last upon his
lips. He never recovered the shock he received by her
death, it was, indeed, to him a sorrow for life.

Art. II.— TVic Life of ike Bee. Aloysius Gentiliy L, L. D,, Father of
the Institute of Charity, and Missionary Apostolic in England.
Edited by the Very Reverend Fatuer Pagani. Richardson and
Son, London. 1851.

NICOLE remarks, in one of his letters, that if he
had to write the lives of the saints, he should try
to find out some of their defects, as well as their virtues,
for that the ordinary wajr in which their biographies were
written, left the reader m some doubt whether or not they
ever really belonged to that frail humanity, to which they
were proposed as patterns. To what particular biographies
he referred at the time he penned this somewhat cynical
saying, he does not make known. The feeling, however,
from which it appears to have proceeded, is not an incon-
ceivable one, for the ** canonized saint^' is certainly the
prominent feature in most biographies, to the concealment,
in some degree, of the frail child of Adam, whom God, by
His mercy and Providence, is training to sanctity, in order
that he may become a light to future generations. In the
lives of canonized saints, it is rather the mature saint every
where that is visible, than the man in progress towards his
sanctification, yet it is legitimate to wish that we might be

366 Father Gentili. [Dec.

allowed to see, in the examples of heroic perfection, that are
proposed to us as patterns, a little more than biographers
usually think well to concede, of the struggles and occasion-
al lapses through which the same heroic perfection has been
obtained. St. Peter's fall and denial of his Master, suc-
ceeded by his tears of heartfelt repentance, establish an im-
mediate bond of sympathy between the disciple and the
saint, and even endear him more to such as are conscious
of their own liability to fall, than the more rigid examples
of virtue not known to falter, and to which, a narrative of
uninterrupted panegyric seems almost in strict justice to
belong. " Justus cadit septies,*' the just man falleth seven
times, and, ordinarily speaking, a volume of a saint's life
will be taken up, (that is, presuming it to be taken up, not
in the way of an ecclesiastical romance, but with some kind
of an intention of studying the saint's life as a pattern,) with
the feeling on the part of the reader, that if he ever hopes
to be canonized himself, it must be after he has had a great
many faults corrected, and has acquired a great many new
virtues. This will certainly be every ordinary reader's
genuine conviction with regard to himself, if he takes the
trouble to think. He will naturally say, *' certainly if I am
ever to be canonized, it is inexpressible what I have to
amend, and incalculable what 1 have to acquire." He feels
then, that his own nature, when put in contact with the
saint's life, is open to extensive correction. He then pro-
ceeds to ask, how came this saint's life to be so singularly-
perfect from so early a date ? why is he so complete a mo-
del from so early a time? I should like to see a little more
into the secret of the discipline and training, the forming;
and the correcting which has produced this perfection, l
feel that there must have l^een something of this process in
his case, and that he must have been cured of his failings,
and learnt to acquire his heroic virtues on some particular
way. I experience a wish to be shown what that way was.
In short, I feel a wish to see a little more of the man be-
coming the saint, as well as to read the uninterrupted pa-
negyric of his sanctity. The life and actions of every saint
of course abound in edification and instruction. The* ca-
nonized saint, exhibited in the true picture of his sanctity,
is the glory of the Christian faith. If, then, we say, that
it is legitimate to wish to see more of the way in which
this sanctity was acquired, it is most assuredly not from
the envious expectation, that perchance we might detect

1851.] Father Gentili. 367

superior brightness to have been here and there tarnished
or disfigured, but in the way of soUd comfort and en-
couragement to ourselves, that having been admitted to
see how Almighty God works his wonders of grace upon,
other men, we may ourselves rise from the study in a better
frame of mind, and with improved dispositions to submit
to his own merciful and mysterious dealing with ourselves.

How far the biographer to the canonized saint is at all
times in a position to expose to view the whole of the gra-
dual processes by which a sanctity formally proposed to the
imitation and veneration of the entire Church has been
acquired, it is not for us to say. If there be a difficulty in
the way of conceding this circumstantial insight into all
the minute details of the gradual personal training of the
canonized saint, in the biography now before us such a
difficulty does not find a place ; and we are disposed to con-
sider, that over and above the interest attached to the life
of one who still lives, as Father Gentili, in the memories
and aflfections of so many thousands, whom he has instruct-
ed and edified, and even reclaimed to a life of piety and re-
ligion. His life has this particular and special feature of
interest, that it shows much of the process by which the
heart and the mind admit of being trained in the way of
sanctity and Christian perfection. It shows, very circum-
stantially for the comfort of the -ordinary reader, that in
order to make great advances in perfection, it is by no
means indispensably necessary to start with the most fa-
vourable natural predispositions towards virtues, but that
the secret of acquiring the science of the saints, lies chiefly
in submission to instruction and reproof, willingness to ac-
cept direction. Dr. Gentili 's life is an exemplification of
the saying of Scripture, *^ A wise son hearkeneth to the
instruction of his father, he keepeth it because it is his
life.'^

Father Gentili's biographer, with the fervour and warmth
of a friend and brother in religion, speaks in glowing terms
of his virtues.^ How much of these virtues, under God,
Father Gentili owed to the enlightened direction of his
wise friend and superior in religion, Rosmini, the ensuing
sketch of his life will show.

Father Gentili was born on the 14th of July, 1801, in
Rome. His parents, Joseph and Mary Ann Gentili, had
eight children, the oldest of whom, Aloysius, is the subject
of the memoir before us. He was of a lively-spirited tem-

368 Father Gentlll. [Dec,

perament as a boy, and carried off not a few prizes for pro-
ficiency in his early studies at school. He was brought up
by his father, who himself practised as a solicitor to the le-
gal profession, and in the fourth year of his university
course, obtained the degree of Doctor in both canou and
civil law. During the progress of his legal studies, it would
appear that he manifested a strong taste for both poetry and
music. The sudden death of his patron, Cardinal Gonsal-
vi, made a chjinge in his prospects of success in his profes-
sion ; and, with the versatile ardour, so often found united
with naturally quick abilities, the young Doctor of laws
began to turn his attention to the study of modem lan-
guages, intending to become a professor, and to employ
himself in teaching them. About this time he also became
desirous to figure as a vocalist, and being possessed of a
good bass voice, under the direction of a skilful leader of a
philharmonic academy, he became a solo singer, and ob-
tained invitations to the soirees of the different ambassa-
dors, where he formed acquaintance with many English
families.

His success as a professor of the Italian language, at
the end of two years, realized to him the sum of two
thousand dollars, which he laid out in the purchase of a
vineyard, situated on the Monte Mario, near the Vatican.
Here, momentarily persuaded, like the usurer described by
the poet, that

'* Beatus ille, qui procul negotus

Ut prisca gens mortalium
Paterua rura bobus exercit suis,"

he bought a pair of oxen and began to plough, in imitation
of Oincinnatus and Cato, instructing the rustics in the true
classical method of tilling the ground, until he caught a
fever from over-exertion, which obliged him to return to
literarjr employment.

^ Almighty God had now prepared a disappointment for
him that was to influence his future career. He fell in love
with a young English lady of noble birth and large for-
tune, and ventured to ask her in mamage ; but his hopes
were suddenly and bitterly disappointed.

" It would be difficult, pcradventure, says his biographer, to
describe the tumult of affections which agitated the heart of the
disconsolata Gentili on receiving this refusal ; but we may form

1851.) Father Gentlll 369

some notion tlicrcof from the consequences which ensued. In the
first place, he became utterly disenchanted with all earthly pur-
suits, and felt in himself a perfect conversion to the love of
divine and celestial things. The worldling and the sceptic who
have no faith in an all-wise Disposer of events, and are ignorant of
that divine omnipotent power which, descending from on high,
penetrates and transforms, as it were, the old into a new man,
usually attribute to an ignoble motive any sudden change in a
Christian from vice to virtue — from disorder to regularity — or they
ascribe its cause to the vexation of disappointment, or to a me-
lancholy dejection of mind. But they do not observe how compara-
tively few there are among the discontented and unfortunate who
take occasion from adversity to ameliorate their moral conduct ac-
cording to the rules of evangelical perfection. Christian philosophy,
on the other hand, indicates that reverses of fortune become causes
or occasions of moral improvement in* man, only when directed to
this end by the previous influence of Divine Grace, which illumines
and aids the sorrow-stricken suflFerer to profit by the bitter yet
wholesome experience. In this case, the contempt of worldly goods
does not proceed from despair of ever enjoying them again, or from
any scornful spite against the inconstancy of fortune, but from an
interior conviction, that there is a higher and nobler happiness to
be found, viz. : the Supreme Infinite Good, which is God. Then,
far from loading a life of dulness and gloom, the penitent finds and
enjoys true felicity. It seems incredible and incomprehensible to
those who have not passed through the ordeal, how the tears of re-
pentance can be sweeter than the faults that made them flow, and
superior even to every carnal delight. They do not understand
how pleasures so highly prized by themselves can be sincerely
despised by the votaries of the Cross, who do so, nevertheless, just
as aged philosophers contemn the toys and pastimes of childhood.*'

From this time forward, Gentili resolved to renounce the
world. On his return home, his pictorial and musical ex-
ercises were suspended ; he threw up his engagements, and
withdrew from society, and gave himself up to the practice
of many devotions, that drew down upon him considerable
ridicule from his former companions, to which, however, he
paid little attention, being well aware how necessary it is
to appear a fool in the eyes of the world, in order to become
wise unto salvation.

In this flame of mind he altered his way of life, and
soon fell sick from an ague fever, and on his recovery
sought admission to the Society of Jesus, which the dis-
creet superior of that society, on observing his pale and
emaciated appeai'ance, declined to grant.

Soon after this, he formed the acquaintance of the Abate

370 Fatlier GentilL [Dec.

Rosmini, his friend and future superior, who had then
come to Rome on business relative to the Institute of Cha-
rity, which he had founded, and for the publication of his
first philosophical work, 11 nuovo Saggio suW Origine
delle Idee. The account of this turning incident in
Father Gentili^s life we subjoin :

" Having heard of the projected Institate of Charity, and of its
learned founder, he wished to become personally acquainted with
Rosmini, and, therefore, obtained an introduction to him through
the medium of a mutual friend. Finding him, at that time, about
the first days of the year 1830, in an infirm state of health, his first
interview was necessarily brief, but in other successive and pro-
tracted visits, a friendship was formed between the two, and manj
inquiries were made and satisfactorily answered concerning the
new Institute. It was on one of these occasions, after musing a
little time, that Gentili exclaimed, ' Who knows whether it be not
God's will that 1 should become a member of your Institute V In
reply to this or similar inquiries subsequently repeated, Rosmini»
would simply remark, that the perfect life recommended bj the
evangelical counsels was excellent in itself, and highly to be
prized ; that those were happy who, inspired by the Lord, corres-
ponded with his grace ; and, in fine, that if he resolved to deyote
himself to this kind of life, his first step towards living solely for
God, should be to leave his home, in imitation of the father of tlw
people elect, Abraham, to whom it was said : Egredere de domo
tua. Hereupon, Gentili took occasion to say, that as regarded fol-
lowing the gospel counsels his mind was already made up ; but to
do so by quitting his home he did not see its feasibility, as he now
depended on his family for support ; and that, were he entirely to
abandon them, he foresaw that bitterness and persecution would
be the result. These objections Rosmini met by merely recom*
mending prayer to the Most High^ and humble trust in His Pro-
yidence/'

It was now arranged by his superior, that he should be
provided with board and lodging at the Irish CoUepre,
where he remained to pursue his studies, and where, on the
25th of March, in the year 1830, he received the tonsure
and the four minor orders, and on the 10th of April follow-
ing, the sub-diaconate.

Soon afterwards, Rosmini left Rome, and returned to
Domo Dossola, and a correspondence ensues between the
two friends that will be read with great interest. Gentili
began now to be exposed to temptation, calling in question
the truth of his vocation to the infant institute. In reply

1851.] Father GentilL 3/1

to his superior's letters he began to give equivocal reasons
for delay.

** lie urged, that it was necessary to defer his departure until a^
more favourable opportunity, — it was the more necessary to take
this precaution, since the world had already blamed as caprice his
wish to become a Jesuit, and that the obstacle caused by his subse-
quent illness had sanctioned, as it were, this opinion. If ill health
was an impediment to his admission into a cloister on the Quirinal,^
how should he be able to endure a conventual life at the foot of the
Alps ? This, when known to the world, would be considered a
greater folly than the first ; — that people would wonder at his re-
tirement to a solitude so remote ; and that, finally, his parents, if
not gently dealt with, would do all in their power to prevent his de-
parture. These unusual expressions excited an apprehension in
the mind of Rosmini, that such sophisms might produce a fatal
effect on his companion ; wherefore, he deemed it to be a duty of
Christian friendship to write a strong letter of admonition, of
which we subjoin a few extracts, to alarm and warn him of his
danger.

" Let me advise you to be on your guard against the suggestions
of Satan, who will certainly do what he can to frustrate your holy
resolutions. I doubt whether I do not see in you a want of gene-
rosity, and cowardice instead. Mind, my dear friend, that I say,
I doubt ; therefore, I do not mean positively ; but I wish you to
make a diligent examination of yourself, to see if the devil has not
succeeded in tempting you to weakness and pusillanimity ; in order,
that if you discover anything you may immediately remedy the de-
fect, and imitate the magnanimity of Satan's conqueror — our Di-
vine Master, Jesus CJirist. If the infernal tempter perceives that
we are resolute, he becomes intimidated, and withdraws after a
few attacks. But, if he finds us cowardly in resistance, his assaults
continue, and when we exhibit fear, he is sure of victory. We ought,
with the royal Psalmist, constantly to pray : * Salva me, Domine, a
pusillanimitate spiritus et tempestate.* A mental tempest is sure
to be the result of timidity, just as magnanimous resolve produces
serenity. In a generous giver only is found faith in Divine Provi-
dence, while the fearful are diffident and deaf to the Divine Word.

•* We are deceived and ruined if we give credit to the world's
maxims : we wander from Christ's narrow path of righteousness,
if we follow the guidance of flesh and blood I You write, * if the
world knew of my departure from Rome — it would deem it a greater
folly than the first,' &c. But, permit me to ask (the terms being
synonymous), is that really madness what the world calls folly ? If
it be, then the cross of Christ is a scandal, and the gospel a folly —
it is madness to expose one's self to danger and suffering like the
Apostles, for Christ's sake, among barbarians — it is folly to bear
witness to the faith with one's own blood, like the martyrs. O en-

372 Father Gentili. [Dec.

viable follj ! Heaven grant tliafc I may become thus incurably
mad ! This superhuman folly, I desire — sigh after, and pray for
daily, as a most precious gift from the Lord ! I am sure that you
esteem this folly to be true wisdom. But if that be wiadom which
tlie world calls folly, why not learn to practise this wisdom ? Why
be ashamed of the term applied by the world to this evangelical
science ? Why sanction by one's own conduct the judgment of aa
insensate world ? I call it insensate, even including therein on&'s
parents and friends, whether laymen or priests, (for these are
sometimes imbued with a worldly spirit). At the tribunal of Jesus
Christ shall any one be excused by saying : * I did not promptly
obey your invitation, because the world pronounced it to be folly ?*
* Go, then, and got a reward, from your master the world — that
world, which I have vanquished, and is no more.' Such, doubtless,
will be the answer of the Supreme Judge.

*' According to your statement, the world will contrast the Qui-
rinal with the foot of the Alps. But Jesus says, * Veri adoratores,
adorabunt patrem in spiritu et veritate.*

** With regard to your health, the world, according to its wont,
would draw a lying inference, not distinguishing between sickness
and recovery. As to your coming * without knowing what you had
to do here, ' certainly the world knows but little about what is done
in holy retreats ; but they know who are called out of an insensate
world by an impulse of the Spirit of God. I am pretty sure that
when Christ was led into the desert, the world knew not what waa
His purpose. But Jesus Christ did not wait until the world got in-
formation thereof. What has the world to do with this affair ? It
is our business, and not. the world's, and if we pretend not to know
what we are going to do, we ourselves also form a part of this in-
sensate world. Is it possible that you are troubled by ignorance of
what you shall have here to do ? I can tell the world what has been
my object in coming to this place. I have come here to fulfil mj
vocation — to obey the voice of God — to keep aloof from a foolish
world — to purify my soul and secure salvation. That is what
one has to do here. Both for you and for me, it is no trifling
affair. Woe to him wlio knows not what to do in the state to
which the Lord has called him ! O how remote are worldly
reasonings from the spirit of our Institute ! For charity's sake call
yourself to account ; beware of the slightest contamination : with-
out being aware of it, we inhale the world's pestiferous and blight-
ing atmosphere.

'*You say the world would strenuously oppose your departure ; but
it could not hinder you if you yourself were determined. The only
impediment in the power of the world, is to weaken and overcome
your will ; nothing more : especially considering that the govern-
ment under which you live places no obstacles in the way of reli-
gious vocations. Have not the saints been contradicted by the world
because they despised it ? Have they not hated father, mother.

1851.] Father Gentili. 373

brethren, sisters, and all family connections, for the sake of Jesus
Christ ? Pray then examine yourself thoroughly, according to the
rule of Jesus Christ and His saints. When Christ, at the age of
twelve years, remained to dispute with the Doctors, He did not
make it known to His mother. In this lesson He clearly speaks.
The saints also have plainly declared themselves. Ho is a jealous
God : and in the gospel wo do not see that He ever endured more
than one refusal. Walk, therefore, righteously before Him. Scru-
tinize your sincerity, in order that you and others be not deceived.
" There is no sincerity where there exists any affection to the things
of earth. In fine, make your examination by the light of eternity,
in the presence of God, and during the silence of worldly rumours
and passions. This scrutiny will help you either to repair any de-
fect caused, perhaps, by the devil in this matter, or to confirm and
increase your generous resolve, and all other virtues united in the
service of Jesus Christ. In this manner you will build on a solid
foundation. There is no other solid basis but the security of the
Cross. I hope you will afford me comfort by adopting this advice,
which I consider of the greatest importance to your soul, not only,
but also to the salvation of many others.'*

To Gentili, who was still inexperienced in spiritual life,
this somewhat bitter epistle arrived opportunely. It was
wholesome and necessary, in order to counteract the before-
mentioned temptations, and to fortify him against others
of a similar nature to come. Other trials of the truth of
his vocation to the Institute of Charity were still in store
for him.

It happened soon after that a flattering proposal was
made to Gentili on the part of Dr. Baines, then Vicar
ApostoUc of the Western District, to come to reside in
England, as he wished to appoint him to an office in his
college at Prior Park. He gave a lively description of the
beautiful situation, and the magnificence of the buildings,
with promises also not a little calculated to induce him to
accept the offer. This truly was a temptation difficult to
overcome, by an enterprising high-minded young man,
naturally inclined to missionary duties, and whose warm
and pious imagination opened before his eyes a vast field
for the exercise of his talents and zeal. However, he had
sufficient heavenly light to see, that it would be wrong to
abandon his first vocation to the Institute of Charity, to
run after another; because, to change with levity our
former resolutions is not conformable to the Spirit of God,
which is a spirit of constancy and perseverance in good
purposes .

374 Father Gentill. [Dec.

We regret that space obliges us to pass over the
interesting correspondence to which the event gave rise
between the two friends, the result of which was, that
Gentili in the end became the more confirmed in his voca-
tion. One more serious trial yet remained. His stay^ in
Rome had been protracted by an attack of fever, which
disarranged the preparations that had been made for his-
departure, to enter upon his Noviciate. He received
Priest^s Orders and celebrated his first Mass on the^ 19tb
of September, 1830; and soon after this was again solicited
to abandon his vocation and undertake a mission iu
England — a solicitation which was now!promptly referred to
his Superior, and in the event proved an introduction to-
his career as a missionary in England.

The final temptation to which we allude happened as;
follows :

" Among the many establishments which exist for the promotioQ
of Christian piety, and the salvation of souls in Rome, there was^
one termed the Opera pia degli Esercizj. Its object was to assemble-
together the poorest and most destitute children — to instruct them
in their Christian duties, and prepare them for their first commu-
nion. It also undertook, at stated times, to gather together poor
adults, ignorant or neglectful of religion, and to enable them, in
retirement, to go through a regular course of spiritual exercises.
A pious Canon, named Muccioli, who was the originater of the
good work, used to engage the best disposed of these poor fellows
to return on Sundays and festivals to his house and garden, where^
after prayer, and the singing of canticles, he provided innocent
amusement for them, and thus succeeded in preventing many from
relapsing into bad company. There existed, however, a groat ob-
stacle to this pious institution working efficiently and permanently
for the public good ; this was the want of zealous and exemplary
Priests, who would, solely for the love of God, and the salvation of
souls, gratuitously assist in preaching, administering the Sacra-
ments, &c. Gentili was earnestly solicited to become a volunteer
in this good work. He objected at first, that it was incompatible
with the obedience he owed his Superior, not to defer a journey al-
ready too long delayed ; but the request being urged with greater
importunity, and deluded by specious pretexts, he gave way, and
promised his assistance. To a class of these untutored youths,
sixty-four in number, he preached the eternal truths with a zeal
and eloquence that was natural to him, and with such effect, that
his uncouth auditors were soon excited to sighs and tears of com-
punction. They reconciled themselves to God in the sacraments of
Penance and the Eucharist, and left the retreat apparently sanctified.

1851.] Father Gentili. 375

This success was calculated to produce au impression more easily
imagined than described, on the heart of a Priest, especially young,
ardent, and talented, and to attach him strongly to the sacred
ministry of the word. No wonder, then, that Gentili became en-
amoured of his recently assumed office, and that Satan made the
most of it to divert him. from his design of retiring to the religious
solitude of Monte Calvario.

'* He now began to imagine seriously that God had destined him
to be the life and mainstay of that pious work, wherein was pre-
sented to his view a wide field of charity to cultivate by the con-
version of obstinate sinners, and the instruction of the most desti-
tute class of society. He moreover opined that this mission was
not incompatible with his vocation to the Institute of Charity, since
such works of Christian mercy, when there was a divine and human
call, should be preferred to others of a more brilliant character in
the eyes of the world. The conditional requisite he fancied evi<
dent in the result of his first labours, and in the pressing demands
of some clergymen connected with the place, that he would con-
tinue his services. Besides, if he were to get a community of mem-
bers belonging to the Institute of Charity, to take charge of this
pious establishment, ho fancied that, like othor religious associa-
tions, the Institute would have a permanent residence in the me-
tropolis of the Catholic world, and thereby become more known
and esteemed by the Church at large. Nevertheless, being still
uncertain whether to go or to remain was conformable to God's
will, he thought proper to remove every doubt by consulting the
Cardinal Vicar, and even the Pope himself. Owing to an affec-
tionate esteem for tiie Abate Rosmini, whose disciple and associate
they knew Gentili to be, these high personages soon granted the
latter an audience, and both advised him on the subject in ques-
tion, to inform himself well, beforehand, of the views entertained
by the present administrators of the establishment about confiding
it to the Institute. He was also recommended not to communi-
cate the matter to Rosmini until the negotiation seemed likely to
prove successful.

'* Pleased with this reception and advice, to which more impor-
tance was attached than was needed, he wrote to Rosmini a some-
what mysteriously worded letter, apologising for his delay by
intimating that a very serious affair detained the writer in Rome ;
and that, owing to the injunction of a superior authority, he could
not just now enter more fully into an explanation of the matter.
Gentili afterwards went in quest of the Canon Muccioli, and in-
forming him of a recent interview with the Pope and Cardinal, he
wished to know exactly what were the Canon's intentions. The
good Priest, on hearing that the enquiry came from such high
quarters, expressed himself ready to confide the concern to a reli-
gious corporation, of which he himself would willingly become a
member, or a guest, in order to spend the last years of his life

370 Father GentilL [Dec.

in devout peace ; hoping that anj opposition on the part of his fel-
low-directors might be overcome by a gentle solicitation, or the
Pope's interference. These statements were repeated bj the
Canon to the Cardinal Vicar, who sent for Gentili, and gave him to
understand that the kej of the house had been given up, and that,
to conchide the negotiation, it was to be regretted that Rosmini
himself was not in Home, in order that this pious work might be
speedily undertaken for the spiritual and material benefit of the
poor of so great a city. In fine, he recommended that a detailed
account be sent forthwith to Rosmini ; and his Eminence also gave
a note of invitation, written with his own hand, to be inserted ia
Gentili's letter to his Superior.

** From the first enigmatical letter, the prudent Superior soon
inferred that his friend had been caught by a bait of the astute
enemy ; wherefore, to meet the imminent peril without delay, he
wrote as follows : *I can neither praise nor blame the nature of the
business you allude to, as you keep it a mysterious secret to your-
self. I may tell you, however, that if you are sincere in giving me
the title which I so unworthily bear, viz., of your Father and
Superior in Christ, your mysterious obscurity appears strange. I
add, that although I do not blame you, the afjfair must be very
weighty to make you defer your departure ; because, at the present
time the first and most important of all affairs is to train ourselves.
After that, if God pleases, we may be better able to serve our
neighbour. An act of charity, or a neighbourly kindness, is all
very well when opportune ; but if called by God to enter the reli-
gious state, and under pretext of attending to his neighbour, a per-
son says to his Superiors, * At present 1 do not wish to make my
novitiate, but to attend to something else,* this would be to give
up the reality for an appearance of good. For charity's sake, my
dear Gentili, let us not bo deceived. Write to me instantly.'

**But when Geutili's letter of the 2i>th of June unveiled the
whole affair, and seeing how really difterent it was to the imagin-
ings of his inexperienced friend, Rosmini thought it high time to
conclude the matter categorically. Wherefore, on the 1st of July,
lie wrote to the following effect : * Your last letter has caused me
great affliction ; I see therein that you are under the control of
your imagination. Into how many fallacies and delusions have
you not fallen ! However pious the work you aim at, you could
not accomplish it, because you wore called to train yourself in the
Institute of Charity. If your vocation be genuine, this is the good
work, which now becomes you. The next is nought else but a dis-
traction, misdirecting you out of your proper sphere. A traveller
who stops at every little pathway to discover whither it leads, quits
the direct high road to his destination, which, perhaps, he never
reaches. If, as was observed before, you are called to the Institute^
it is levity, not to say presumption, to allow yourself to bo drawn
into inopportune undertakings. Did not the Cardinal Vicar himself

1851.] Father Geniili 377

grant you loave to depart, when he knew you had received the
order ? Why then remain ? You say, that you felt an inspiration
to do 60. But I wish you had fewer inspirations and more firmness,
and more obedience above all. This following your own whims and
fancies, which divert you from what is suggested by your superior
and enjoined by your vocation, fills mo with pain and apprehension.
You ask me to pray God to grant you a little humility, of which
you feel the need ; and I reply, that I will heartily do so, for it
seems to me that you greatly require it. You speak in the tone of
a man inspired : surely you must entertain a high opinion of your-
self ! You even talk heroically, saying that you are resolved to
make your pilgrimage on foot, * sine baculo et sine pera.* My
dear friend, I am not contented with mere words ; the facts are,
that you have not travelled hither ; that you have been building
castles in the air ; and that you have imprudently committed your-
self in many things. In your letter, you heap together so many
ideas, you bring together so many personages, that I hardly know
with which .of your indiscretions I must first begin. But let me
tell you, that this talking with so many about our affairs, and your
acting as my procurator, are not entirely in accordance with the
spirit of our Institute, which recommends us rather to be unobtru-
sive, humble, and contented. You speak of persecutions ; how can
it be otherwise where there is so much talkativeness and impru-
dence ? You must not imagine that every persecution is for justice*
sake. There are persecutions which a man brings on himself by
his own folly. It was highly indiscreet of you to ask an audience
of the Supreme Pontiff for the solution of doubts, which proceeded
from an over-heated imagination, and from a lack of simple Chris-
tian docility. Is not the right royal road before you when you
are called to the Institute of Charity, and the Superior warns you
that the time is come ? To wish to turn from it is not the way to
reach the goal. The triumphant style in which you apologise for
seeking, without my orders, aii interview with the Pope, gives me so
much displeasure, that I must disown you, if you do not acknow-
ledge your fault and inconsiderate behaviour. "What temerity and
presumption induced you to negotiate so many things without first
requesting to know my opinion ? And when you were doubtful,
why not write to me immediately and wait for my advice, instead
of going to the Pope ? Had you done so, how many false steps
would you not have avoided ? But you feared, perchance, I would
give suggestions contrary to your wishes, and hence you de-
sired to get the words of the Pontift* as a shield to protect you
while acting in conformity with your own pleasure. But, away
with these devices ! Let us be actuated by simplicity alone. We
want no subtle diplomatist. Our Institute is not benefited by
similar manoeuvres 5 nay, it could not exist by such means. The
extreme kindness of the Holy Father towards me has induced him
VOL. XXXI.— No. LXII. 6

k.

378 Father Gentili. [Dea

to be affable to jou, but I will let him know, if necessary, that I
had nothing to do with your proceeding, and that I am grieved
JOU should have abused his benignity, and that, if you do not
amend, I shall no longer recognise you as one of our body. Be-
sides, you say, tliat you several times sought an audience of the
Holy Father, since his exaltation to the throne, in order to con-
gratulate with him in the name of our society. But, who gave you
the commission ? Who made you its ambassador ? Your own
fanciful notions made you think yourself the representative of a
society which you did not even consult, much less give its autho*
rization. How many mistakes have we here ? I am ashamed
when I think of the pretty credit you procure in Rome to myself
and the poor Institute, exhibiting your.«elf as our general commis-
sary and plenipotentiary envoy. But God's will be done ; my sins
have, no doubt, deserved it. Let me, however, tell you plainly,
that I admit no more excuses, and that I insist upon an acknow-
ledgment of your faults. Moreover, if you have not hitherto
deceived me, and if you have a true vocation to the Institute of
Charity, I order you to set out on your journey to Domodossola,
forthwith, and not on foot, (as it would be tempting God with your
frail constitution,) but by coach."

This firm and penetrating letter of his superior had
the effect of preserving the postulant in his vocation.
No sooner did he receive it, than he saw through the
deceit of the Devil and his own self-love. He wrote
to his superior immediately, thanking him for^ his for-
bearance, and acknowledging his fault, promising, at
the same time, that he would lose no time in taking his
departure from Rome, which was shortly afterwards
hanpily accomplished.

The memoir now shows us Father Gentili in his novitiate
at the Monte Calvario, where, to his surprise, he was made
Master of Novices in the Infant Society, and was forced
froni circumstances to divide his time between the duties
of his post, and those of preacher and confessor. Chapter
iv., of book ii., gives an animated account of his various la-
bours in the novitiate, which is the more interesting, as it
was here that Gentili laid the foundation of that extensive
practical experience, which afterwards rendered his labours
in England so fruitful in happy results.

The volunie proceeds to give a full account of the vari-
ous negotiations, which ended in the mission of Gentili,
with two companions, to reside in the' college at Prior
Park. Early in May, 1835, Gentili left Roveredo with
his companions, on their way to Rome, to beg the blesBin^r

1851.] Father Gent ill 379

of the Apostolic See upon their mission, which they hap-

Eily obtained, the Holy Father, as they all knelt before
im, saying to them,

" The Lord opens for you a large field to do good therein ; bo
firm in good principles, and teach soand doctrine*' — then raising
])is hand to bless them, he thus concluded : *' May God bless, help^
and prosper you.*'

They then left Rome, and proceeded on their journey,
arriving in London on the 16th of June.

The impression which the sight of this town, described
in so many different ways by the visitors of diflferent
nations, deserves notice :

** We seemed to bo really entering," he wrote in a letter, " the
city of Pluto : black houses, a black sky, black shipping, and black
looking sailors — filthy to an extreme degi;ee — the waters of the
Thames were tinged with a colour between black and yellow, and
emitted a stench highly offensive ; on land, there prevailed a con-r
fused noise, with horses, carriages, and men of every condition run-
ning and crossing each others* path — in fine, to make a long story
short, here the devil is seen enthroned, exercising his tyrannicaJ
sway over wretched mortals.**

This impression of England does not appear to have
been improved by a further acquaintance, for we find
Father Gentili afterwards describing his missionary life in
Leicestershire, in the following terms :

" Here I am, among heretics ; alas ! what a humiliation it is for
a son of Holy Church to behold his mother here in the most de-
plorable slavery ! What errors, vices, miseries, and folly prevail !
Who will give tears sufficient to my eyes to weep over such a deso-
late state of things ? God's judgments are inscrutable ; but it appears
a divine malediction has fallen upon this land. It is a chaos, where
' nuUus ordo, sed sempiternus horror inhabitat.* Even nature seems
to concur in reducing it to this condition ; for the country, generally
speaking, presents nothing to view but hay and oak trees. The at-
mosphere is almost always cloudy, and whenever it shows itself se-
rene, it appears with a leaden coloured veil, which weighs down one*s
spirits. 0 where are those evenings and days of another clime —
when at morn, or at noontide, I could raise my eyes towards the
sun's brilliant beams, and at night, to the starry vault of Italy's
azure sky, and feel at the same time, my soul, of the world unmind*
ful, wholly absorpt in God ! Where, in fine, amid the warbling of
nightingales, I used to raise my voice in psalms and canticles,

380 Father GcniUi. [Dec.

in behalf of raj own necessities, and the Church's want<9. to the
Creator's eternal throne ? Here, on the contrary, a flock of gar-
rulous crows continually stunning mj ears, render my abode still
more dismal."

Such were ourmissionary'simpressions of acountry, whose
own inhabitants regard it as the favoured and choice spot
of the earth, and its people as specially blessed, by their
enjoying the pure light of the Bible, and the Divine Reve-
lation unadulterated by human traditions.

We must pass over Gentili^s career at Prior Park,
where, against his own inclination, he was made superior
of the college, by the Bishop, the account of which is full
of interest, and must also omit his various labours in dif-
ferent parts of the diocese, in order to follow him again to
Italy, whither he returned in 1839, to take his vows as
Presbyter of the Institute. This was happily accomplished
on the 22nd of August, in a subterranean chapel selected
for that purpose near the catacombs of St. Sebastian.

Soon after his admission as a professed member of the
Institute, he had to pass through another trial, the ac-
count of which we must give at length, in an extract from
the work, which is especially interesting, as showing the
struggle of mind to which an ardent spirit is so often liable
to subject itself, when walking towards perfection in the
pp,th of obedience, and the happy victory which the good
father gained over himself:

•

" Before parting, the Father General took Gentili aside, and
after tenderly embracin|:;him, gave him to understand that proba-
bly he would not have to return with the others to England, but to
remain in Italy ; and that until further orders, he must take up his
abode at Monte Calvario. The superior came to this determination
for the three following reasons : In the first place, he wished to re-
lieve from embarrassment Bishop Baines, who seemed averse to the
recall of Gentili to Prior Park ; and on the other hand, to employ
him exclusively in the direction of convents would not prove agree-
able to the members of the Institute. In the second place, it was
considered that Gentili might be more usefully occupied in chari-
table works in Italy ; or in founding a new mission in England, as
certain providential signs indicated as soon likely to happen.
Thirdly, it was intended also to afford Father Gentili an occasion
of exercising those virtues so becoming a religious man ; viz., hu-
mility, indifference, and obedience.

'* In this state of mind ho set sail from Civita Vecchia, and
on the 24th of August, landed at Leghorn, where he remained the

1851.] Father Gentili. 381

following day, which happened to be the fourteenth Sunday after
Pentecoit, and dedicated to the Sacred Heart of the Blessed Virgin
Mary. In the company of his brethren, while visiting the churches
of the city, he entered the Armenian temple, wherein a beautiful
imago of the Queen of Angels happily attracted his attention.
Prostrating himself before it, and showing to his dear mother his
own afflicted heart, with humble and filial confidence, he begged to
remind her, that the present festival in honour of her sacred heart,
had been first introduced at Rome, by his own paternal uncle — the
pious Abate Marconi, and that in consequence, he hoped to be
freed on that day from his many temptations, in order to execute
cheerfully in every thing, the will of her Divine Son ! Wonderful
to relate, he had no sooner finished this devout prayer, than he felt
himself profoundly moved to compunction — and a torrent of sweet
tears soon flowed from his eyes. Thus his heart he felt had become
durably changed ; and replete with consolation, he was enabled to
thank the Lord, who, after permitting Satan to depress him so
frightfully, had at length filled him with such spiritual fortitude
and joy, as to render pain and confusion not only tolerable, but
desirable even, * usque ad mortem/

I II

It proved, shortly afterwards, to be the will of God to
recall him to England, where he was sent by his superior
to become chaplain to Ambrose Lisle Phillipps, Esq. of
Grace Dieu Manor in Leicestershire, where he arrived in
safety, and was most cordially received, on the 12th of
June, 1840.

Gentili's career as a missionary among the stocking
weavers and colliers of the benighted neighbourhood,
where Providence had conducted him, is very vividly and
circumstantially described, and is a part of the volume
abounding in interest. He has to instruct himself in the
habits and feelings of the people, to overcome the instinctive
aversion and alienation, with which the Saxon aborigines
of an English country parish regard the advances made to
them by a foreigner who speaks their language imperfectly,
and shows that he does not fully understand their habitual
ideas. He has to go on foot from village to village, to
bear to be pelted with mud by the boys, to be abused by
the parsons and Methodist preachers from their pulpits,
to be burnt in effigy. He has, by addressing himself un-
weariedly to individuals, to gather together his little con-
gregation, and all the while, alone and single-handed, to
withstand a violent opposition from a multiplicity of quar-
ters. But what is there that can daunt a zeal bent u[)ou
serving God, and, strengthened by the firm convictioa

382 Father Gentili. [Dec.

tliat God calls to the work, what can discourage a heart
that is fixed by divine charity upon the procuring the sal-
vation of souls, by bringing them to the communion of
the Church ? It was m the labours of this mission, as
Gentili himself acknowledged, that he gained that intimate
knowledge of the actions, thoughts, and ways of life of the
labouring poor of England, among whom he was to soon
spend the remaining years of his life as an itinerant
missionary.

Various were Father Gentili's personal adventures as a
missionary at Grace Dieu, which are all told in a very

f)leasing and natural manner ; and at the end of two years,
lis success was such, that he was removed to Lough-
borough, to take charge of the mission that had been
formed there some years ago, the bishop having placed
the mission-house at the disposal of the Institute. Here
Father Gentili remained engaged in parochial duties, and
in giving retreats, until he was formally appointed to the
office of itinerant missionary, in the year 1845.

But it is time we should relate one more instance, which
forms as honourable a testimony to the firmness and wis-
dom of the superior, as it shows the real goodness of Fa-
ther Gentili, and how much his ardent spirit owed to the
wise and judicious direction, to which he received the
grace to submit himself:

" Tho case happened thus. The superior of the Institute ia
England, the Rev. Father Pagani, with the sanction of the Bishop,
had undertaken to provide for a very important mission in Bir-
mingham, and all that remained to be done was to send the
appointed labourers from Loughborough.

** But apprehensive that this undertaking might check the work
of extraordinary missions, which he deemed of paramount impor-
tance, not to mention his other fears, and deceived bj the appear-
ances of a greater good, Father Gentili so warmly opposed the Bir-
mingham negotiation, that it miscarried, much to the displeasure
of liis superiors, and not a little also to their discredit. To jostifj
his own conduct in this affair, he wrote a long letter to the Father
General. This wise superior, who soon perceived his correspon-
dent's mistake, pointed it out to him in a reply of which we give
the version entire :

" * I have received your letter of the 3rd April, (1844) in whicht
for the discharge of your conscience, you apprise me of what jou
have said and done relative to the missionary affair at Birmingham,
in order that I may give you a due penitential reprimand, in case I
find you faulty. Ah, my dear friond, to my great grief and inftaite

1851.1. Fatlier Geniili. 383

sorrow, I do find fault with you indeed. The substance of your
letter is this, that, for the good of the Institute in England, you
have managed to defeat the completed plan of a work already
arranged by your superior. Now, pray tell me, do you perchance
admit the principle, that subordinates may bring about the failure
of their superior's regularly concerted operations, when they opine
them to be injurious to the society to which they belong? If you
reflect on. this principle, you must see that it contains the destruc-
tion of religious obedience — the only basis of true virtue, and with-
out which holiness becomes illusory and ungodly, and there can be
no well-grounded hope that the Lord will prosper the Institute.
Now, tell me, have you not acted according to this destructive prin-
ciple ? How could your conscience suggest such a war against the
work of your superior ? You say (perhaps) to save the Institute
from a threatened misfortune. Had you the authority? Were
you charged therewith by a legitimate commission from God?
Why did you not hold firmly the principle of faith, that he who
obeys does not err, and that he who submits, without leaving his
own sphere, is assured of God's assistance 1 Does not the Holy
Ghost say, vir obediens loquetur victorias ? How much greater good
would you not have done the Institute, by placing trust in obedi-
ence— a virtue so dear to the Lord, and by steadfastly believing
that in this way God would not fail to reward you, and bless the
Institute, and draw good out of evil, even supposing the superior
had made a mistake. How deplorable, then, is the illusion ! But
herein does not consist the whole of your guilt. To succeed in
what was not your business, not satisfied with openly thwarting
your superior's judgment, you resort to blameworthy means for
succeeding in your intent, disapproving of what your superior had
concluded with respectable parties, diminishing thereby his credit
and authority, and, while worthy of much esteem, making him appear
to bo a man of little prudence ! Oh God ! Who would have thought
that to such a degree Satan could have deluded you, * sub specie
honi V I greatly deplore the real injury you have done to the
Institute by this bad example ; and I grieve that you have become
the instrument of discord, while you ought to have been the centre
of union, the model of perfect obedience, and the cement of fra-
ternal charity. Ah ! my dear brother, open your eyes to the im-
prudence committed, and to the violation of the virtue and spirit of
your vow. Ask, therefore, pardon of God, and promise Him a true
amendment. I desire you not to appear holy in the eyes of man,
as this often imperils a man's eternal salvation ; but rather to be
truly a saint in the sight of God. Withal, you will never attain to
holiness, if you do not make it consist in a total abnegation of
your own judgment, and in a perfect obedience to your superiors.
Do then, my dear friend, afford me the consolation of seeing you
re-enter yourself, and draw profit from my words, which are a
warning which God sends you, through my unworthy mediam«

k

384 Father Gentill . IDec.

Promise me in writing that you will never fall again into errors of
a similar nature, that you will do nothing more unknown to, or
against the will of your superiors, and that, to carry out your own
views, you will not rely for support on the influence of others out of
the Institute. In fine, write to me in such a manner as to prove
that your error, though serious and imprudent, was accidental and
transitory. Renounce for ever your own will to follow that of God ;
then shall I ble«js the Lord for having enlij^htened you, and enter-
tain the hope of you being a worthy son of the Institute, which has
for its foundation obedience, *' usque ad mortem, mortem autem
crucis.' "

The remainder of this interesting memoir contains a
circumstantial account of the diflferent missions — the suc-
cess of which is too well known that we should now need
to refer to them — on which Father Gentili, with his col-
league, Father Furlong, were engaged, up to the time of
the death of Father Gentili in Dublin, on the 26th of Sep-
tember, 1848, who fell a victim to that divine charitv
which had been the rule of his life in the Institute which
bears that highly favoured name.

To those who love to trace the designs of a wise and
merciful Providence interposing in the events that happen
in this world, there is afforded matter for reverent and
thoughtful contemplation, in considering why it should
have pleased God to take Father Gentili away, with such
apparent suddenness, from the scene of his labours, in
which he seemed to be accomplishing so useful and even
necessary a work in the revival of faith and the reformation
of morals in the Church of both kingdoms. He^ was in
the height of carrying on a great work, and for a time this
seemed to be stopped by his death.

Yet, doubtless, this has been a wise and merciful dis-
pensation, even though we were to remain completely at
fault in trying to trace wherein the merc^ and wisdom^ of
the dispensation could be said to consist. The subject
affords scope for consideration, and we ourselves will ven-
ture to hope, that the dispensation took place in order that
it might be with this holy Father as it was with the Israelite
champion of old, with whom those whom he slew at his
death were more than those whom he slew in his life ; viz.
that the holy missionary who fell with his weapons in
hand, and in his spiritual armour, on the field of battle,
the victim of divine charity, will win more souls to God by
his death alone, than he would have done by his life.

1851.] Father Geniili. 385

"Skin for skin/' answered Satan, ''and all tbataman
has will he give for his life/' ** Yet the Good Shepherd
giveth His life for the sheep/' These are the credentials
of the Catholic missionary, '' Oves occisionis sumus/'
What are a few years more or less to us in this world,
compared with the question of discharging our duties in
it? If the people of England are to be won to the faith,
morals, and discipline of the Catholic religion, they are to
be won by those who come to them, superior to the ques-
tion of life or death. If the Catholic missionary is not
superior to this consideration, he is not equal to the
exigences of his position, for any moment may call him to
the bedside of a fellow creature dying of a contagious
disease, which he himself might take, and die in less than
a W6ek.

In Father Gentili's death we have this principle of our
faith and practice clearly avowed, and placed in open day ;
that rare talents, high natural gifts, choice abiHties, the
micommon qualifications of the orator, the theologian, the
casuist, and the able and enlightened director, qualifica-
tions uncommon, each by themselves individually, and
still more uncommon in combination, are yet no ground of
exemption from the chances of the battle-field. We do
not say, here are rare qualities found in combination, here is
a choice subject, fitted for special purposes, he must be
nursed and sparingly used, lest a mischance befal him, no ;
he must go to his post, and there take his stand on the
field of battle, and, if it please God, die as becomes a
soldier, with his arms in his hand. What can be more
simple ?^

In this point how instructive is the contrast of Father
Gentili's death as a Catholic missionary, being, in this
respect, but a specimen of what his brethren engaged in
the same labours are also, with the lives and labours of the
clergy of the Established Church, and the sectarian
preachers as a body. With them the last thing to which
they expect their religion to introduce them, is the neces-
sity of preparing to run the risk of death ; and although
there have been honourable exceptions, still whenever any-
thing happens to bring them in contact with duties involv-
ing risk of life, either the duties are neglected, or like
officers who sell their commissions the moment they hear
of their regiment being ordered upon dangerous service,
the persons in question absent themselves firom their post.

386 Father Gentill [Dec

and seek safety for themselves and families inflight. The
Catholic missionary stays at his post, and if it is God's
will, dies there. Less than this could not be expect-
ed from a divine religion. " The hireling, because he is
a hireling, seeth the wolf coming, and betakes himself to
flight, because he careth not for the sheep.*' " The Grood
Shepherd layeth down His life for the sheep.**

In another point of view also, we venture to anticipate
much excellent fruit from the memoir before us. Father
Gentili's life, as we have sought to show by the extracts
we have given, is a signal example how much may be
owed, in the path of spiritual advancement, to the wise
training and government of superiors in religion ; in this
respect the memoir abounds in instruction, both to^ supe-
riors and their subjects, and may,^ with the blessing of
God, exercise a most beneficial influence in deciding
future vocations to the religious life.

Lastly, with regard to the characteristic features of
Dr. Gentili's career as a missionary in England, it is
quite in place to point attention to the plain and obvious
fact, which, in our opinion, speaks so much for the good
sound sense, and plain enlightened wisdom of this holy
Father. He was an Italian, of an ardent temperament,
of refined tastes, of naturally delicate perceptions. If ever
there was a person by nature disinclined to sympathise
with the qualities of the Saxon mind. Father Gentili
was this person. If there ever was a person of whom
it might naturally have been expected that he would
have come among us, hopelessly in love with a
type of religious worship, and incurably prepossessed
with an order of religious ideas, imbibed under the
influence of the eager mind, and the more genial climate
of his own beloved Italy, Gentili again was that person.
Behold, then, this ardent admirer of Italy at his missionary
labours; at Grace Dieu see him, going from cottiige to
cottage, studying, yes, deeply, profoundly studying, the
nature of the people he had been sent to instruct, acquaint-
ing himself with their traditions, learning their ways of
thought, their interests, their very foibles and failings, all
to discover where an access might be found to implant, if
not a Catholic doctrine, at least a desire to learn what
Catholic doctrine might be.

lint it is time to take leave of this interesting and
most instructive memoir, and in taking our leave we again

1851.] The Actions of the New Testament. 387

fervently repeat our desire and hope, that the numbers of
those estranged from God and their salvation, whom this
victim of charity will gam by his death, may far exceed in
number those whom he gained by his holy and self-den^-
uvz life.

Art. III. — 1. Jesus the Son of Mary ; or, the Doctrine of the
Catholk; Church upon the Incarnation of God the Son, considered
in its bearings upon the reverence shewn by Catholics to his
Blessed Mother. By Rev. John Brands Morris, M. A., 2 vols. 8vo.
London: Toovey, 1851.

2. — Lettres Catkoliques sur VEvangile, Catholic Letters on the Gospel,
By the Abbe Massiot. Paris: Dentu, 1851.

WHEN, some numbers back, we treated first of the
Parables/*" and then of the Miracles, of the New
Testament, t and showed how they could only receive their
obvious explanation, as instructions, through the Catholic
system, we felt that the same principle was applicable to
all that our Redeemer said or did to make us wise unto
salvation. To suppose that the less direct teaching of the
(jospel belonged exclusively to the Spouse, and that the
more immediate announcement of religious truth was com-
mon property to her and to her rivals, would indeed be an
anomaly of reasoning, whereof we should be sorry to have
any one suspect us. The miracle was for the unbelieving
multitude ; the parable was for the heartless priest and
scribe ; for friends and dear ones were the ordinary and
domestic actions of Christ's earthly life ; for apostles and
disciples were His words of eternal life, the mysteries of the
kingdom of heaven. The Church that alone can claim
succession, in ministry, in truth, in grace, and even in
history, from these, must alone be entitled to appropriate
to herself what was done and said for them. Others may

* Vol. xxvii. t Vol. zxvii.

388 The Actions of the New Testament. [Dec.

stand in the skirts of the crowd, and listen ; some may
even penetrate into the inner circle that stands about Jesus,
to interrogate, being doctors of the law, or to tempt, being
Pharisees. And if, like those who were sent to apprehend
Him, but remained to listen to Him, they attend with sin-
cerity, to His doctrines in parables and in mighty works,
they will find them directed, as we have before seen, to
force them into communion with, and submission to, the
one holy and apostolic Church, in which alone His teaching
ends, which alone His miracles illustrate.

But when the day's labour is closed, and no Nicodemus
comes by night, to prolong it, before our heavenly Teacher
retires to the mountain- top, or to His humble chamber, to
pass the hours of repose in His rest, '* the prayer of God,"
we see Him seated in the company of the few, of the
faithful, and the loving ; the Shepherd of the little flock,
the Father of a slender household, partaking with them of
their homely fare, and sharing with them in their untutored
conversation. That His speeches to the multitude and to
the priests were clothed in noble and elegant language, no
one can doubt. The people admired not only the wisdom,
but the grace, which flowed from His lips; """ the learned,
like Nicodemus, conversed with Him respectfully ; f and
all wondered at the gifts, ordinarily of education, sponta-
neously springing from the mind of a reputed carpenter's
son. \ But without repassing the ground trodden over in
the first of the articles referred to, we will content our-
selves with saying, that had the language or accent of our
Saviour betrayed any symptoms of Galilean rudeness, the
ridicule which might have been cast upon it would have
been too keen and too useful a weapon, to have been refused
by his unprincipled foes. The Jewish writers are unspar-
ingly severe upon it. But when we come to contemplate
our B. Iledeemer retired from the crowd into the society of
His disciples and familiar friends, we cannot but see Him
descend into the familiar dialect of His own country ; as
senators in Venice, or nobles in Provence, would do when
in the bosoms of their families. With Peter, whose speech
in the priests' hall made him known for a Galilean,§ he
would converse in those homely phrases, and with those
local tones, which formed the language of the more favoured

* Luke iv. 22. t John iii. 2. J Matt. xiii. 50.

§ Matt. xxvi. 43.

3851.] Tlie Actions of the New Testament. 389

cottage, as of the surrounding dwellings, of Nazareth, and
vrhich He condescended to lisp in infancy, as if caught
from the sweet lips of His humble Mother. For affecta-
tion must be removed, as much as coarseness, from our
estimate of His character who chose to be poor among
the poor.

And thus also we come to contemplate the frugal meal
at which this heavenly conversation was held, as cor-
responding in its outer form and features. Rude furniture
in an unadorned chamber, rough-hewn tables and stools,
the wooden platter, and the earthenware beaker, are
the preparation for a repast, of which the bread is not from
Aser,^^ nor the wine from Engaddi. Yet what a banquet !
Here it is that the parable is explained, and the want of
faith censured ; that contentions for precedence are
checked, and deep lessons of charity and humility are
taught ; that, in fine, the mysteries of revelation ai'e dis-
closed, and the gospel seed is dropped into warm and
panting hearts.

Surely then, if the Church can claim the more myste-
rious teaching of adverse or curious crowds, as all directed
for her improvement, she must have as fair a right to
appropriate to herself that more intimate and direct
instruction, which was addressed to those, whom she alone
represents, and succeeds, on earth. And such is the
teaching by actions and by words. To the first we shall
confine ourselves in this paper, reserving the second to a
future opportunity.

But though we have drawn a faint outline of our Lord's
dealings with His Apostles and friends, by way of descri-
bing the scenes of familiar life in which we may find
instruction, in so doing we have kept before us an ulterior
view.

I. In fact, if '^ Christian" signifies a follower and dis-
ciple of Christ, one who looks up to his Master's example
as a perfect model, there must, and will, be among those
who bear that name, many that will gladly copy whatever
He has been pleased to do. To all, this may not be given,
any more than it is granted them to resemble Him in His
ministry, or in His sufferings, or in His more spiritual pre-
rogatives. But as His type is not to be found reproduced
in any one of His disciples, as John came nearest to Him

* Geu. xlix. 20.

390 The Actions of the New Testament. [DeCr

in love, Peter in elevation cand headship, Paul in eloquence,
James in prayer, Andrew in death ; and as in later times
His sacramental grace lives in His priesthood, His
patience in His martyrs. His union of soul with God in
His holy virgins ; so may we expect to find in some class
of His chosen imitators this love and choice of poverty, this
denudation of worldly comfort, and neglect of bodily ease.
Our B. Redeemer is indeed a fount of burninjo: light, the
very smi of the spiritual firmament in His Church ; and
the rays that are concentrated, with dazzling intensity in
Him, diverge and are scattered over earth as they descend ;
and one is reflected back from one soul, and another from
another, reproducing jointly the image of Himself; but
each one brightly rendering back only one, though absorb^
ing many more. Now if one of the virtues of our Lord
was contemj)t of earthly things, and love necessarily of
abjection, it must yet be reflected upon earth somewhere
in His Church ; and if this virtue be found only in one
among contending parties, it surely will form a moral note,
a seal of Christ not to be mistaken.

We imagined, for instance, just now, this heavenly
teacher joining His disciples in their temperate repast,
entertaining them meanwhile with that word, on which man
lives, no less than upon bread.''* Now let us descend
eleven hundred years in time, and travel from Palestine to
a more westerly region. There is a cleft in a mountain's
side, down which, though most precipitous, and seemingly
carved out by an ancient torrent, rarely a drop of water
flows,* into whose dismal avenue no songster of the grove is
known to penetrate. Patched against the side of this
gloomy glen, and rooted in its grey crags, is a dwelling,
half built, half excavated, which, at the period alluded to,
had just been constructed. The inmates are at meat.
Just enter in. Their refectory is low, dark, and damp,
for one part of it has its walls of rock. All else is
in admirable keeping: the tables and forms are scarcely
less rugged. And what is on the former does not fall
much behind. A few herbs from the impracticable garden,
seasoned poorly, bread of the coarsest, and drink of the
sourest, form the provision. At this are seated young men
and old, all simply clad, of grave aspect and modest demea-
nour. One alone is not engaged as the rest. He is seated

* Matt. iv. 4.

1851.] Tlie Actions of the Neic Testament. 391

apart, and reads to them that eat. Let us listen to his
words, which seem to rivet the attention of all, and give
a dainty relish to their homely food. Is it from the
'^Romaunt of the Rose'^ that he is reading? Is he
reciting scraps of minstrelsy, that tell of chivalrous deeds,
or of some high-born dame on her ambling palfry, escorted
by a gallant knight ? Something of the sort, forsooth ;
but sweeter, Oh ! by far ! From the Book of books he is
reading, how in cold winter a gentle maiden rode from
Nazareth to Bethlehem upon an ass, attended by a poor
carpenter ; and at her journey's end, lodged in a stable.
At this simple tale, behold, he who presides puts away his
frugal platter, and rises from his hard seat, trembling with
emotion, his eyes glistening with tears, his hands clasped
convulsively. What has caused this sudden outburst of
ffrief? Why, he seems to himself a base poltroon, a
dainty, delicate fellow, lodged gloriously, clothed luxu-
riously, fed sumptuously, the very rich glutton of the
Gospel, when he compares himself with her, who, delicate,
and pure as the lily bending over the snow- drop, adores the
heavenly Infant who has come, in that hour, to share her
cold and poverty. And so he crouches down in shame and
humility on the clay-pavement of his refectory, and in a
low wailing, broken with sobs, exclaims : *' Woe is me !
The Mother of my God seated on the ground, and I com-
fortably placed at table ! My infant Saviour poor and
destitute, and I enjoying an abundant meal !"

Now to the scripture read, this was then a commentary,
and it must be allowed a practical one. It said, more
plainly than the neatest print of modem fount could
convey it, that if Jesus Christ chose poverty and discom-
fort for Himself and those whom He best loved. He cannot
but be pleased with those who, out of dear love of Him,
choose a similar state. It goes on to say, that even when
we have done our best to copy, the divine original stands
far above us, and beyond our reach, and there is room left
for humility at seeing our distance. And so the holy St.
Francis, one of whose many beautiful actions we have been
nan-ating, as well as many of his companions, had been
rich, but had become poor, nay, wretchedly poor, and mor-
tified, and neglectful of self, and all for God's sake. Yes,
though in a cavern, clad in a single tunic, girt with a cord,
and feeding on commonest fare, he saw enough to make
him weep, in the greater abasement of God made man.

392 TJie Actions of ilie yew Testament. [Dec-

A proud supercilious age will no doubt tell us, that St.
Francis did not rightly read the Gospel. Was he wrong,
then, in understanding from it, that our Saviour loved and
chose poverty ? Or was he wrong in believing it good to
love and choose what He loved and chose ? If the meal
which we have described is not to be considered as
approaching to the character and spirit of the repast
enjoyed by the apostolic college, with their divine Head,
then we will agree to go elsewhere to look for a parallel.
Whither shall we go ? To the workhouse, with its inflex-
ible dietary ? Or to the hospital, like St. Cross, with its
stinted fare? But it is the voluntary imitation of the
divine example, in the Church, that we are seeking ; and
not the coYnpulsory fasts inflicted on others by the State or
tlie Church. Perhaps when churchmen meet in hall —
the nearest approach to the monastic refectory — for
example, in one of our universities, may be expected the
closest adaptation of necessary refection to the evange-
lical standard. On a fast-day, particularly of the Estab-
lishment's appointment, we may hope to see how well it
reads the gospel injunctions. Beneath the well-carved,
lofty roof-tree, beside the emblazoned oriel, amidst the
portraits of the great and rich men, who have sanctified the
hall before then, around tables well furnished — we will say
no more — sit the ministers of a dispensation, which if it be
of invisible and spiritual goods, neglects not the ponder-
able and the perceptible. Perhaps, after the duties of the
hour are over, one of them will wipe his- mouth, and pro-
ceed to evening lecture in the pulpit, there to assure bis
hearers that, among the superstitions of popery is that
of embracing a life of poverty and abjection, voluntarily
suffering privations, subjecting the body by austerity : all
which comes of not studying the scriptures ; as neither the
example of our Lord, nor the writings of Paul, give the leiist
warranty for such unnatural conduct. And he will
instance, as proof, the grovelling Francis, who quite lost
sight of his Saviour, by going on the path of poverty.

In the life of St. Gregory the Great, we read that he
daily entertained, and served, at table twelve poor men, in
honour of the twelve apostles ; and that one day a thir-
teenth unbidden guest sat with them. " And none of
them that were at meat durst ask Him : Who art Thou ?

1851.] The Actions of the New Testament. 393

knowing that it was the Lord.y^-^" Now were it to please
that same divine Being to visit thus, in visible form, the
haunts of men, and seat Himself at table, where most con-
genial to His meek heart ; we are simple enough to believe
that He would be more naturally to be expected in that
very refectory of St. Francis's Carceri, j^et existing in that
cloven Appennine, near Asisi, where the same poverty and
frugality are still practised, than in the midst of a clerical
party, in the combination room of any University college.

It may perhaps be said, that our parallel is unfair. But
we are driven to it, by the absence from^ the " pure and
apostolic branch of the Church established in this country^'
of anything more likely, a priori, to bear analogy with our
Saviour's repasts among His apostles. And we cannot
forbear remarking, how, in every Catholic community, the
presence of Christ instructing His disciples, at their com-
mon table, is imitated by the reading of scripture during
meals ; a practice, we believe, confined to our " unscriptu-
ral'' and " scripture-hating' ' Church.

But our main purpose hitherto has been to show, how
this maligned, but only faithful Spouse, has alone read her
Lord's poverty as a practical lesson, has artlessly believed
that it was not a chance but a choice, has unaffectedly
deemed it a virtue, has found it a key to many otherwise
locked-up treasures, a way rugged and steep over Calvary
to Thabor. And this poverty of Christ, our Saviour, may
be well put at the head of his actions, as ruling, modifying,
and colouring them all, from His cradle to His cross.

It is not, of course, our intention, or we might properly
say, our presumption, to go over even the principal actions
of that life. We will only cull out a few, and we must
premise that our selection will not be systematic ; only we
shall begin with the beginning, and choose classes or
groups of actions, in preference to single acts. In the
early period of the divine life on earth, we have necessa-
rily to contemplate the influence which it had upon another
person, inferior indeed by far, but nearer to Him of whom
we speak than any other created being. A Catholic at
once understands us to mean His Blessed Mother.

II. Now it has appeared to us, when contemplating the .
early scenes of the gospel history, that her place has been

♦ Jo. xxi. 12.

VOL. XXXI.-No. LXII. 6

394 Tlie Actions of the New Testament, [Dec.

far from duly considered, with reference to questions con-
troversially agitated. It is true that the Catholic attaches
importance to all recorded concerning her in the gospel ;
and finds there proofs incontestable of her virtue, her dig-
nity, her privileges, and her influence, or rather power.
The protestant is, on the contrary, prone to depress, to
extenuate, to disattach importance from, all that relates to
her; nay, he seeks to overlook it all, as merely secondaiy,
casual, and almost dangerous. Now it is surely important,
and it can hardly fail to be interesting, to ascertain what
place is appointed to her by the Word, and the Spirit, of
God, in the twofold economy, of faith, and of grace. In the
earlier part of gospel history we must look for our answer.

1. We shall perhaps a little weary our readers by the
course of remai'ks through which we must beg to lead
them. They will contain nothing new, and nothing very
brilliant.

It is clear that the historical books of the New Testa-
ment present a twofold aspect, as trust-worthy, and as
inspired, compositions. Their wiiters used every human
industry and pains, to record what they believed and knew
to be true ; and the Divine Spirit superintended, guided,
secured from smallest en-or, and sealed the work which
Himself had suggested to the writer's mind. There were
two excellent reasons, among others, for this mode of
dealing. First, those books had to go forth and be
examined by men who were unbelievers, and before whom
their authors came merely as honest, accurate, and cred-
ible historians. They were to be received by Pagan and
Jew, and later, by sceptic and sophist, antecedently to any
recognition of their inspiration. They were to be sub-
mitted to all the tests of human ingenuity, and even
malice ; put on the rack ; compared with every other sort
of document; tried by geogi'aphy, physics, history, morals ;
examined by every possible light, heathen, rabbinical.
Gnostic, Jewish ; tortured philologically in every member
of every sentence. Then the character of each writer was
to be investigated ; when he lived and where ; what were
his means of knowing ; what his right to speak ; what his
. language, his dialect, his idioms, his peculiar turn of
thought ; what his object and purpose, and what his mode
of attaining it ; what his interest, his gain, his loss, his
chances. In fact, men who were called upon to give up eveiy-
thing that human nature hugs, and evil passions stick to, on

1*51.] Hie Actions of the New Testament 395

tbe strength of certain most extraordinary facts related by
what seemed very ordinary people, were not likely to do so
upon a claim of inspiration, but would search into the
evidence of the facts, through the credibility of their
vouchers, with the sharp scrutiny of a repugnant mind. Now
this inquiry must be exercised on the varied elements of a
human truth. The earthly author must appear, if not in
his infirmities, at least in his peculiarities, to lend a grasp
to the eager searcher. Where there are no veins, no grain,
no colour, no separable ingredients, no penetrable point,
investigation is hopeless. Hence every defender of the
Gospels, from the beginning of the Church till now, has
laid hold of those coincidences with, or approximations to,
other writers, which proved humanly the perfect veracity
of the inspired writers ; and even minute research has been
employed, to discover apparently trifling corroborations of
particular statements. Let the reader but look at the first
sentence of Dr. Lardner's " Credibility,'* and he will see
how an able Protestant vindicator of the New Testament
undertakes what we have described. The same course is
pursued by Catholics, enforcing the credibility of the
gospel history against unbelievers.*

A second reason for this economy is that of its becom-
ingness. The gift of inspiration could not be supposed to
be bestowed on negligent or careless writers. We cannot
well imagine a consciousness of inspiration (we do not speak
of vision or revelation) in one who had witnessed facts,
superseding all care or effort, accurately to remember what
he had witnessed. He did his best to render himself
worthy of the marvellous gift, by his own thoughtful and
diligent application to the task. He wrote as conscien-
tiously, and with as anxious a desire to give the truth, as
though he had no guarantee against error.

The result is, consequently, as we have remarked,
a double aspect under which the evangelical records pre-
sent themselves. First, they will bear the strictest scru-
tiny as histories, antecedent to all proof of revelation ; so
as to compel the acknowledgment of the facts contained in
them — facts which form the basis of Christianity. And
this secures moral certainty to one previously an unbe-s

• Every course of theology will show this. E. g. Perrone, torn. i.
cap. iy. pr. i. : torn. ix. par. ii. sect. i. c. i. pr. iii., where the usual
arguments for credibility are brought forward.

396 Tlie Actions of the New Testament. [Dec.

liever. Secondly, they have on them the sacred and
divine stamp of inspiration, of which no sufficient evidence
can exist out of the Catholic Church ; and this furnishes
them with supernatural authority, making them be believed
no longer with a human, but with a divine, faith. The one
makes them credible, the other infallible; the one true,
the other certain.

But the surest proof that the first character pervades
the gospel history is, the appeal made by the writers them-
selves to the usual grounds of credibility. These areof twa
classes. St. John claims the rights of the first, — that of an
eye and ear- witness. " That which was from the begin-
ning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our
eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have
handled, of the Word of Life ; (for the Life was manifested,
and we have seen, and do bear witness, and declare unto
you the Life eternal, which was with the Father, and hath
appeared to us,) that which we have seen and have heard,
we declare unto you/* ^'^' Again, of the mysterious flow of
blood and water from Christ^s side. " And he that saw it
hath given testimony ; and his testimony is true.*' \ And
at the close of his gospel : " This is the disciple that giveth
testimony of these things, and hath written these things.'*!
St. Luke contents himself with being evidence of the
second class, as the accurate recorder of events carefully
collected from first witnesses. ' " Forasmuch as many
have taken in hand, to set forth in order a narration of the
things which have been accomplished among us, according
as they have delivered them unto us, who from the hegit^
ning were eye-witnesses , and ^ministers of the word; it
seemed good to me also, having diligently attained to all
things from the beginning ^ to write to thee in order, most
excellent Theophilus.*'§

And, in fact, if we diligently peruse the Gospels, we
shall perhaps be surprised to find, how few events are
recorded, of which the knowledge could not have come
from human testimony. The prayer in the garden, which
was unwitnessed by man, and the first moments of the
Resurrection, perhaps form the only exceptions ; but they
can, and may, be supposed to have been communicated by
llim, whose testimony infinitely transcends that of man.

* 1 John i. 1. t John xix. 33. \ John xxi. 24.

§ Luko i. 1-3.

1851.] 771^ Actions of the New Testament. 397

We may seem to have made a long digression, or to
have taken a circuitous path to our purpose. It is indeed
so. But we have gained these two points : first, that the
chain of evidence, whereby the great christian system is
mainly sustained, must be unexceptionable as to strength,
decision, and completeness, without a flaw or imperfection ;
and secondly, that the divine inspiration confirms and sanc-
tions the solidity and fitness of every link. Hence arises
the high position of evangelist in the order of saints. St.
John is styled *'the Evangelist,'* in preference to "the
Apostle,'' because the first title is a distinctive beyond the
second. And no small portion of the Apostles' glory con-
sists in their having been chosen witnesses of our Blessed
Lord's actions, to manifest them to the world; whence
St. Paul hesitates not to say, that we are of God's house-
hold, because we are " built upon the foundation" (that is,
the testimony) " of the Apostles and prophets.""'

But whatever may have been the importance of the facts
or events to which they were called to be witnesses, there
was one of more importance than theni all, one which is
the very ground- work of the christian dispensation, without
the certainty of which the entire system falls to pieces.
This is the mystery of the Incarnation, as accomplished
upon earth. To this God willed that there should be only
one witness ; of all its holiest details one sole evidence.
" In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may
stand,"! except the Word of words, the Incarnate Word.
This must stand attested to the world for ever by only one
witness, — and that was Mary the ever blessed. Who
could tell that Gabriel came from heaven, and brought her,
from the Eternal Father, message ? Who, that she was
alarmed at his greeting? Who, that she hesitated to
accept the proposed prerogative of a divine maternity
at its imagmed price? Who, that he manifested the
fulness of the gift, and the miraculous agency by which it
had to be accomplished ? Who, her virginal consent, and
its concurrent effect, the Mystery of life, the Emanuel in
existence, a God-man in being? Only she, the chosen,
exclusive partaker, on earth, of the most hidden counsels
of the Almighty.

Now, first, take away her contribution to the gospel tes-
timony, efface her testimony to Christianity, and you find

* Ephes. ii. 20. t Matt, xviii. 16.

398 The Actions of the New Testament. [Dec.

not simply a link broken, but the very fastening of the whole
chain wanting ; not merely a gap, or a break, made in the
structure, but the foundation gone. In the laws of belief
on testimony, what elsewhere appears unnatural is true.
If you want to make a structure look unsafe, you represent
it as a pyramid resting on its point. Yet where the num-
ber of believers increases at each generation, from the first
source of evidence, it is clear, that a diagram representing
this fact, and the unity of derivation of the truth beUeved,
would present this very form. Now here the belief in the
wonders wrought in the Incarnation, of ages and of the
world, rests upon one point of testimony, a unit, a single
voice— that of the B. Virgin Mary.

Again we say, cancel her testimony, and what becomes
of all other witnesses ? Had she not let out the secrets of
her breast, or in higher truth, had not God's Spirit moved
her, as He moved the Evangelists, not to collect indeed,
but to scatter, not to enquire, but to teach ; had He not
thus made her the Evangelist of the Evangelists, and tlie
Apostle to Apostles ; had not that same divine influ-
ence, which overcame her first reluctance of purity, pre-
vailed over her second unwillingness, from humility, (of
which we shall treat later) and compelled her to speaK;
the whole tale of love, which fills the holiest of histories,
would have wanted, not only its tenderest and most
affecting beginning, but the very root from which its love-
liness and beauty spring, to circulate through it all.^ We
should have read with wonder the account of miracles
most amazing, and discourses most admirable, and virtues
most divine ; but it would have been difficult for us to
separate, in our minds, this narrative from what we attri-
bute to prophets or patriarchs, had not the clear, and most
sweet, and consoling record of our Lord's appearance on
earth been preserved for us, so as totally to segregate Him
from the very highest orders of holiness, and make Him
even here " higher than the heavens." And let it be
remarked too, that even the principal circumstances of our
Saviour's Nativity and early life rest exclusively upon the
same evidence. When St. Luke collected his narrative
from those who had been witnesses from the beginning,
Joseph was long departed, and so were Zachary and Eliza-
beth, as well as Simeon and Anna. She only who laid up

1851.] The Actions of tike New Testament. 399

all that happened in her mother's heart, ^'^ survived, witness
of the journey to Bethlehem and of the flight into Egypt,
of the angelic messages which accompanied these events,
and of the presentation in the temple. Who else had
retained in memory the words so admirable, and so import-
ant to us, of Elizabeth and of Zachary; above all, that
canticle of dearest interest to the Church for ever, her
unfailing evening hymn, the Magnificat ? It is a trea-
sury, the mother's bosom, at once capacious and retentive,
in which can be secured words and deeds that have passed
from every other mind. And so when, after forty years,
the early life of our Redeemer is enquired into, there
remains one faithful and most loving witness, to give proof
of what ennobled, ratified, and stamped with divine
evidence, every action and every word of His after life.
Maiy alone supplied the testimony to His miraculous con-
ception and birth, and to tha fulfilment of the prophecies in
her pure virginal being.

But we may go further. So completely had these won-
derful occurrences been concealed, so well had " the secret
of the King been hidden,''! that when our Lord came
before the public, its uncontradicted opinion pronounced
Him to be Joseph's son, " being, as it was supposed, the
son of Joseph."! And the people hesitated not to say in
His own very country, " Is not this the carpenter's son ?
Is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren James,
and Joseph, and Simon, and Jude ; and his sisters are they
not all with us?"S And again they said, " Is not this
Jesus the son of* Joseph, whose father and mother we
know? How then, saith he, I came down from heaven ?"||
Here were valid elements of human evidence, a strong
foundation for historical assertion. Had any one gone
into the very country and neighbourhood where Jesus had
lived, to enquire into His early history, he would have
found concurrent testimony that He was " the carpenter's
son." The espousals of Mary with him, would have been
quoted, as well as their enrolment in Augustus's census.
Public repute, — that is, the testimony of thousands, might
have been powerfully alleged. And against all its authority
what have we to oppose ? The simple assertion of Mary. So

♦ Luke ii. 19. 51.
t Tob. xii. 7. X Luke iii. 23. § Mat. xiiL 55.

Jo. vi. 42.

400 The Actions of the New Testament. [Dec.

high, so sacred, so undoubted is her word, that to the
Christians of all ages it has sufficed to counterbalance
every other source of information. Surely then, her place
is the very first in the order of Gospel evidences, and so
in the economy of faith.

Let us again consider, what gives her this position.
When an apologist, as writers on the evidences are most
unbecomingly called, wishes to establish the claims of the
evangelists to our credit, antecedent to the proof of inspi-
ration, he justly insists upon what they did and suffered*
to demonstrate their sincerity. We are most rightly
shown, how every interest was surrendered, every dearest
affection sacrificed, prospects, comfort, home, friends, fa-
mily ; how every suffering was incurred, eveiy hardship
courted, from the discomfort of an uncertain life, to the
extremity of certain death ; and who, it is powerfully
asked, would act thus without firm conviction, and on
behalf of anything but truth ? And further appeal is justly
made to the wonders which they themselves wrought, and
the supeniatural gifts which they displayed, in attestation
of their truthfulness. Now, all this being most true, let
us see how it influences our idea of the character of God's
blessed Mother. Long before the three first gospels were
written, very long before the last of them was penned, the
Apostles had given their testimony, to the whole world,
'* their sound had gone forth into all the earth, and their
words unto the end of the world. '^''' Some of them had
even sealed their doctrine with their blood. And there
may have been some who, like Thomas in India, or Bar-
tholomew in Armenia, never used the written word, to
teach Christianity. And no doubt each of them spoke as
a witness of the Resurrection, and other miracles. But
they were just as ready to die tor the truth of niuch which
they had not seen ; for the certainty of the virginal con-
ception of Mary, and the marvels of the Nativity. They
indeed had divine internal conviction of all these facts ;
but they preached them to the heathen and Jewish world,
as witnesses. They would claim therefore the same
credit and authority, for what they taught on Mary's tes-
timony, as for what they had witnessed with their own eyei
And if any one asked them what motives of credibility
they could give for her witnessing, they would indeed neces-

* Ps. xviii, 5.

1851.] Ttic Actions of the New Testament. 401

sarily be of a nature totally different fi'ora any other. To
her were granted no miraculous power, no supernatural
gifts. To her was not accorded the rougher evidence of
apostolic trial and suffering. No prison, no rack, no
sword, save that of grief, is her appointed lot. How could it
have been otherwise? She lives in quiet; she dies in
peace. What then was the corroboration of her testi-
mony, which an apostle would allege ? Her spotless inno-
cence, her heroic fortitude, her unfailing sweetness, her
peerless holiness ; in one word her matchless virtue. But
further, her participation in all the evidences of her Son^s
mission. Every prophecy which He uttered, every heaven-
ly doctrine which He preached, every miracle which He
wrought, every grace which He displayed, was witnessing
to her, everv time He called her His mother. Whatever
proved to the world who He was, showed it equally what she
was. Every work which demonstrated Him to be the Son
of God, proved her irrefragably to be the Mother of God.
** Beatus venter qui te portavit, et ubera quae suxisti,^^'"'
was the natural expression of feeling regarding both. It
was a contradiction of reason, and a blasphemy against
God, to suppose that she was not worthy of her high dig-
nity, her awful relationship, or rather her appointed office,
in the scheme, of man's Redemption.

Such was the ground of credibility accorded to her tes-
timony ; one superior far to what was given to any of the
Apostles. Let us then imagine the ** glorious choir'* of
these holy men, about to spread over the whole earth to
preach the Gospel, and collecting together the great facts,
which they must proclaim, as the basis of their doctrine,
and to which they must bear witness, even by the shed-
ding of their blood. There is as yet no written word of
the New Law ; and this is therefore the very first source of
universal teacliing. Each one comes to pour into the
common fountain his jealously-guarded store, thence to
well forth, and flow unfailingly, as the stream of tradition
throudi the Church — the life-bearing river of the earthly
paradise. Some bring less, and some more : while those
who have been born after time, into the faith, receive
almost with jealousy what into their eager ears, by the
more favoured ones, is poured. John and his brother and
Peter attest the anticipation of celestial glory on Thabor^

♦ Luke xi. 27.

402 The Actions of the New Testament [Dee.

The first of these alone can reconnt, while others hang
down their heads and blush, what took place on Calvary,
and on its rood : and the last bears witness against him-
self, of his triple denial in the high priest's halL Nicode-
mus has a hidden treasure which he brings out, in the
mysterious conference that he held with Jesus ; and Mag-
dalen may be the only one to tell the history of her
forgiveness. But when each one has contributed his all,
miracles, and parables, and gracious words, and wisest
discourse, and splendid acts, they have but furnished
materials for a history of three years of a life of three-and-
thirty. Where do the remaining thirty lie hidden ? Who
holds their annals? Who is the rich treasurer of that
golden heap, of blessed words and acts divine ? One, only
one. Let her be entreated to enrich the world by partici-
pation of her recondite knowledge. She comes to pour,
into the bright waters that flow froni the apostolic fount,
the virginal cruse which, Queen of wise virgins, she trea-
sures in her bosom. Yea truly, and the lamp which t*
feeds cannot be extinguished. A few drops indeed only
will she give ; for by those thirty years it may be said,
that she mainly was intended to profit ; they were her
school of perfection. But every smgle drop is mo^t pre-
cious— is as a peerless and priceless pearl. ** Oleum
efifusum nomen tuum.*'^'* The very name of Jesus, that
name of blessing and salvation, she makes known as a di-
vine revelation to her, and with it all the promises of what
He should, under it, accomplish, and the proclamation of
what, by it. He was declared. While Apostles surrounded
Him to witness His wonderful works, while multitudes
pressed in admiration to listen to Him, she hung, at times,
on the skirt of the crowd, or stood outside the door, the
solicitous, because loving, mother. But the maternal
heart naturally flies back to the days of infancy, which are
there laid up in vivid recollection. The woman wi)l most
gladly remember the hour of her purest joy : when she
rejoiced that a man was bom into the world.! What then,
if He was, the " Wonderful, God the Mighty/^t And
such are the precious, and most soothing manifestations
which Mary will make, for the comfort of devout souls,
even to the end of the world. She will lay the very

groundwork of the evangelical narrative. Whatever

■ ■ - ■■«

♦ Cant. i. 2. t John xvi. 21. J Is. ix. C,

1851.] The Actions of the New Testament. 403

gratitude the Church bears towards the collectors and
preservers of our first sacred records, is due in signal
manner to her. Whatever of credibility, authority, and
truthfulness is warranted by Christian belief, to the wit-
nesses of what constitutes the basis of faith, must be
peculiarly extended to her. Nor may we doubt the just-
ness of her title in the Church — Regina Apostolorum.

This our obligation is further enhanced by a considera-
tion to which we have alluded, and which has often struck
us in reflecting on a passage :in the Gospel. May we be
allowed to add, that its beauty, as well as its importance,
seems to us to have been much overlooked. From Mat. i.
18 — 24, it is clear that the angel's visit to the B. Virgin
was by her completely concealed. This would have seem-
ed almost impossible. It was a subject for the purest, yet
intensest, joy ; for an exultation of spirit that would beam
forth from every feature, would quiver on the lips, betray
itself by involuntary gestures of bliss. Then to be so
exalted, and not show consciousness of it ; to be raised
above every attainable dignity, to find oneself become the
theme of prophecy, the fulfilment of types, the term of the Old
Law, the dawn of the new day, the mother of the world's life,
in one word, the Mother of God, and not, by look, or word,
hint it ; to be as calm, as simple, as natural, the next time
she spoke with Joseph, as if nothing had occurred ; this gives
us a truer estimate of the beauty and perfection of her cha-
racter, than almost anything else that is on record. And
further, that naturally foreseeing or knowing, as time went
on, Joseph's tormenting perplexity, she should have pre-
ferred to bear its pain — the most grievous possible to her
pure and affectionate heart, to a manifestation of her lofty
privileges, and heavenly maternity, proves both a humility
without parallel, and a confidence in God's providence wor-
thy of it. But now, is it rash to say, that, if even such strong
motives as were here presented did not suffice to overcome
her humble modesty, and induce her to manifest her hid-
den glory, there must have been a reason stronger still, to
influence her, when afterwards she gave minute details of
Gabriel's interview, and the circumstances of the divine
Incarnation ? And this will be supplied by the same power
which impelled St. John, in extreme old age, to record his
remembrances of our Lord's discourses ; the Holy Spirit's
prompting to a work important for our instruction, and so
for our salvation.

404 The Actions of the New Testament. LDoc.

And now we may ask, is there anything exaggerated,
unnatural, or repugnant to God's word, in the view which
we have taken of the B. Virgin's place in the economy of
faith ? We feel sure there is not. We have then only
further to ask, is this her position one in accordance wim
Protestant ideas, or Protestant affections ? Would it suit
the pulpit or the pen of Anglican or Dissenter, Lutheran
or Calvinist ? Would it be tolerated even as a speculative
thesis in a Protestant university, or be proposed as a
theme for devout meditation by a high church director?
Take the whole range of heretical feelings towards the
Mother of the Incarnate Word, from brutish abhorrence,
(we blush to write it,) to formal indiflference, and see where
her claims will fit in. But to a Catholic such a pK>sition is
at once natural and acceptable. He greets with joy what-
ever tends to enhance her merits, or increase her praise.
He recognises her as a being placed above his power of
adequately doing justice to either. It is gratifying, there-
fore, and consoling to him to learn, even though it may
not have struck him before, that the ever holy Virgin Mother
of God holds a high, or the highest, place, in any relation
which binds her, on the one side, to the merciful counsels
of God, and, on the other, to those for whom they are
decreed.

2. And now let us proceed to enquire, what place those
early records of our dear Saviour's life assign to Ilis Parent
in the order of grace, That she was full of grace when she
was chosen by God for that high dignity, we have an angel's
word.'^ That the inpouring of all grace into the already full
vessel, by the incarnation itself, made it overflow, who can
doubt ? We have only to examine what happened, on the
first occasion of proof, to satisfy ourselves of this.

There must have been particular reasons, as we have
before suggested, for the selection of any given Gospel
history from the abundance withheld ; and, therefore, it is
no presumption to believe, that one of the most remark-
able, and profitable events, succeeding the incarnation,
was the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth. Simgly read, it
is a touching record. The humble condescension of that
now sovereign lady towards her aged relative, in travel-
ling into the mountains to congratulate with her, on her
miraculous conception, and the lowliness of respect and

* Luke i. 28.

1851.] The Actions of the New Testament. 405

veneration with which her greeting was received, and
the breaking out from Mary's holy lips, of her first and
last recorded canticle and prophecy, render this meeting
remarkable in the eyes of the most superficial reader.
Catholic meditation will go deeper than this. Gabriel's
was the first salutation of Mary, Elizabeth's the second ;
and in the Church's both are united and fit together, and
are rivetted as naturally, as we are told the chains of Peter
at Jerusalem and at Rome did, when brought into con-
tact. '* Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee :
blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of
thy womb !" This might have been all spoken by one, so
well do all its parts cohere. And what wonder? An
archaugel sent from God, and a matron filled with the
Holy Ghost, are but difierent instruments moved by the
same breath, and must sound in perfect harmony. And
hence Elizabeth is the second, external witness of the incar-
nation, receiving knowledge of that marvellous mystery from
the Spirit of God. What a full and overpowering sense of
its gi'andeur, and of the dignity of Mary, do not her words
convey? " Whence is this to me, that the Mother of my
Lord should come to me? and blessed art thou who hast
believed, because those things shall be accomplished that
were spoken to thee by the Lord.""' Suppose, three months
before, it had been announced to Elizabeth that her rela-
tion Mary had come to see her, would it have appeared to
her anything astonishing ? She^ was the elder by many
years, and her husband was a priest of high rank : could
it have been thought a wonderful favour, an unexpected
condescension, that the young maiden, betrothed to a car-
penter, and their relation, should come to pay them both a
visit? But Zachary, moreover, had been favoured by an
angel's visit, a rare honour in those days, when the direct
word of God had become precious, as in the time of Heli.t
And let us observe, as we pass, that the respective posi-
tions of Zachary and Joseph, in relation to Elizabeth and
Mary, are definitely distinguished by the difierence of the
two annunciations. In the first, the archangel Gabriel
appears, and conveys the tidings of a son to the future father;
in the second, he brings his message only to the immediate
mother. But to return, Elizabeth, too, had been blest by
a miraculous gift, of a child in her old age, of a child pre-

♦ Vo. 43—40. 1 1 Reg. ill. 1.

406 Tlie Actions of ilie New Testament. IDec.

described by the greatest of the prophets. In the order
of grace therefore, both had been signally ennobled.^ How
much more sublime must the position of the B. Virgin have
appeared to them, how much superior her rank, that her
coming to them should have been, to their minds, as a royal
visit, of which they could not, in any way, consider them-
selves worthy ? Nor must it be forgotten that the expres-
sion of these sentiments proceeded not merely from a per-
sonal conviction, but from the Holy Spirit, who spake
through Elizabeth. The words which she uses are worthy
of special note. *' Whence is this to me?*' In other
words, " What have I, or what am I, that such an honour
should be conferred upon me ? However favoured I may
have been myself, however honoured by God's choice, and
God's blessing, the distance between me and thee is so
immense, that I cannot account for this act of kindness."
Then how does she describe it ? " That the mother of my
Lord should come to me ?" She was indeed the mother of
the Precursor ; Mary, of her, and his. Lord. Her son was
to close the Old Testament, (for "until John was the
law,"*) Mary's was to give and ratify the New; John was
to be the sealer of prophecy, Jesus its fulfilment ; John was
the herald, Jesus the King. But the words " my Lord"
recall to our minds a similar expression, where the two
ideas of the Messiahship and the Godhead are united.
" The Lord said to my JLord^^' as spoken by David, and
explained in this sense by Christ Himself rf " My Lord
and my God," as similarly applied by St. Thomas.!
Elizabeth, then, the woman "just before God, walking in
all the commandments and justifications of the Lord with-
out blame ;"§ Elizabeth, the mother of the "greatest who
rose born of woman,"|| given to her miraculously; Eliza-
beth, in fine, the inspired of the Holy Ghost, here assigns
to Mary a place immeasurably superior to her own: in
virtue of her prerogative as the mother of the incarnate
Word, the Saviour of the world, the only begotten of
God the Father.

We may paiise to ask with whose belief about the B.
Virgin does this feeling of Elizabeth agree — with that of
Catholics or with that of Protestants ? The latter, as we

* Luke xvi. 16. t Ps. cix. 1. Luke xx. 42. { Jo. xx. 28.

§ Luke i. 6. || Mat. xi. IL

1851.] Tlie Actions of the New Testament, 407

are told in a most important work just published/^ consider
her as " a good woman/* perhaps a Iwly one. But with
the exception of a few more ultra high-churchmen, none
are prepared to exalt her so completely, by right of her
prerogative, above every other order of sanctity, even that
which the word of God has pronounced " without blame/'
In the Catholic system, on the contrary, no one will deny,
that this superiority is not a matter of opinion, but one of
universal belief; not a sentiment, but a doctrine. And it
is assigned on the same ground as it is by Elizabeth, the
incommunicable privilege of the divine maternity.

But all that we have said goes no further than allotting
to the B. Virgin the highest place in the order of grace ;
whereas we have to enquire what is her relation to the
economy, or dispensation of grace. For we have remarked,
that tbe Visitation is a fair test of this. If any Catholic
sentiment, respecting her, give particular offence to the Pro-
testant mind, it is one which forms the basis of confidence
in our devotion towards her : that it pleases God to make
her the channel of great spiritual graces. In reality, there
is nothing very unnatural in the idea, when one considers
that it pleased Him to give, through her, to the world, the
Grace of graces, the very Fountain of every good gift.
While the ordinary laws of nature were so over-ruled, as
that she alone should have a part in this god-like work,
they were so preserved, as that her share should be real
and complete. She was the only being ever created, from
whom God at any time received or took anything. And it
was that humanity thus derived in truth from her,t that,
united with the divinity, in one person, but two natures,
was the ransom of man, and the source of salvation and
gi'ace. After this, can it be wonderful, if by the same
means are dispensed the fruit of that first and divine Gift?
But let us see how it was in the Visitation.

Elizabeth thus addressed our Blessed Lady : *' For
behold, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in

♦ We have received, while writing the preceding paragraph, the
Rev. J. B. Morris's most learned and interesting work, •* Jesus the
Son of Mary," in two volumes. We may probably save ourselves
and our readers trouble, by referring to it as we proceed. Wo
hero refer to vol. i. p. 345.

t" Misit Deus Filium suum, /oc^um ex mulierc.'' Gal. iv. 4.

408 Tlie Actions of the New Testament. [Dec.

my ears, the infant in niy womb leaped for joy/' ^ It has
been the unfailing tradition of the Church, attested, with
perhaps one exception, by every Father,^ that, in that
mstant, the Baptist was cleansed from original sin, and
sanctified in his mother's womb.f In fact, it would be
repugnant to imagine consciousness of his Redeemer's
presence so prematurely granted him, and a joyful recog-
nition of Hmi made, without this boon. For the^ very
knowledge, thus miraculously communicated, would imply
conviction of sin, whereof He was the Redeemer ; and this
could only inflict pain, unless accompanied by immediate
removal of what estranged one from the other. The joy
attendant on the consciousness reveals that this took
place.

St. John was thus purged and hallowed in the womb ;
this was a fruit of redemption, and, in fact, its essential
result. To purchase for us forgiveness of sin, to reverse
the original curse, and make us once more children
of God, and heirs of His kingdom, were the great objects
which broucrht down the Word from the bosom of His
Father. Not only was this purification of John, before
birth, a fruit of Redemption, but it may be well considered
the first act of our Saviour's life, in application of His
atonement. It was indeed meet that His very first
recorded action, being yet unborn, should be the forgive-
ness of a sinner. It was no less becoming that this first
deed of mercy and grace — the forerunner of so many
similar ones, should be performed in favour of the Pre-
cursor; the theme of whose preaching, the burthen of
whose prophetic song may well be supposed to have beeu
taught him now: *' JBehold the Lamb of God, who taketh
away the sin of the world !"

Now through whose instrumentality was this first act of
graciousness performed, this first application of the fruits of
redemption made? There was nothing to prevent its
taking place silently. Jeremiah was not made aware till
his mission commenced, that he had received consecra-
tion before birth.| But in this instance God was pleased
to employ an outward agency, and we are told what it was.

* Luke i. 44.
t See the proofs collected in the work referred to, ** Jesus the
Son of Mary," vol. i. pp. 37^.

J Jer, i. 5.

r

1861.] The Actions of the New Testament. 409

It was the voice, the word of His mother. As soon as the
voice of her sahitation sounded in Elizabeth's ears, so soon,
and no sooner, does the act of mercy take place. Had that
salutation been anticipated or delayed, by her will, the pro-
phet's liberation would have come sooner or later. Her
word of greeting was the sentence of his forgiveness. The
pardon was our Lord's alone, the grace His, the love His ;
but the conveyance of them all was left to her ; she trans-
mitted pardon, grace, and love to the exulting prisoner.

This gives us then the place assigned, by the early
records of our Lord's life, to His most blessed Mother, in
the economy of grace. It makes her the dispenser of the
very first grace which He bestowed after His incarnation-;
a grace of the most sublime order, in fixvour of his dearest
saint, the friend of the bridegroom. Now let us take, in
conjunction with this remarkable fact, another, and a par-
allel one. We mean the performance of Christ's first
miracle at Cana. From St. John's account it is evident,
that our Lord performed it in obedience to His Mother,
and even anticipated His appointed hour for her sake:
*' My hour is not yet come." Heedless of this protest,
she feels confident that He will grant her request, and
orders the servants to make preparations for the miracle.'*""
Again we have the same principle acted upon. The first
temporal grace, though it required a miracle, and that
miracle involved departure from a predetermined plan, was
for her, at her request, through her means. The wine
would never have been obtained, had she not interposed.

Our divine Master's actions, as we have before now
remarked, were never purposeless. They give us prin-
ciples and analogies which cannot deceive us. His first
action especially, in a given case, may be supposed to lay
down a rule. Thus we are told how He called His first
disciples — Peter and Andrew, the sons of Zebedee, and
Matthew. It was by a command to leave all and follow
Him. We do not doubt, though not informed of it, that
every other Apostle was called on the same terms. We
find how He treated Magdalen, and the woman accused
before Him ; and nothing would induce us to believe that
He ever showed Himself austere or unforgiving. Nay, one
action of our Lord suffices to give a certain law. For

• John ii. 4, 5.
VOL. XXXI.-No. LXII. 7

410 The Actions of the New Testament. [Dec.

instance, could we doubt, after seeing His conduct at
Caua, that had His blessed Mother, at any subsequent
period of His life, asked Him for any other similar favour,
or exercise of power, He would have refused it? The
common sense of analogy forbids us to think so, with au a
fortiori power ; for it would have been much less to ask
for a miracle when thousands were being performed, than
to ask and obtain a first, and, in some sense, a premature,

one.

Again this argument of analogy, or precedent, carries
the Church always beyond tliis life. It is not necessary to
enter upon any elaborate reasoning on this subject, but we
may illustrate it by one or two examples. \Ve assign to
the Apostles their place in the celestial court, by that
which they occupied, in relation to our Saviour, on earth.
We do not com] »are their actions with those of others, and
award relative merit accordingly. We do not consider
whether St. Francis Xavier, or St. Boniface, may not have
laboured more, or converted hiore to Chi'istianity, than St.
James, whom Herod slew, so early as the year ^.* We
do not even give them rank by reason of their msirtyrdom ;
for St. John, who was not allowed to lay down his life for
Christ, holds his pre-eminence as an Apostle far above all
martyrs ; nor would it make ariy diflference in the place of
any Apostle, could it be proved that he did not die for the
faith. Why this 'i Because our Lord, by His mere choice
of the twelve to bo His companions, and by the high comr
mission, and the powers which He bestowed on them,
assigned them a position above every other class of saints,
and this we believe to be continued to them in heaven.
Again, Magdalen and Martha were sisters. The second
preserved to the end of life an unblemished character, and
is honoured by the Church among her holy vii^ins. She
follows the Lamb in heaven whithersoever He goeth. Her
sister has not this privilege ; she is a saint only as a peni-
tent. Yet the Church bestows upon Magdalen her higher
honours, and gives to Martha an inferior reverence.!
Wherefore the difference? Simply because on earth our

* Acts xii. 2.
t Tho Feast of St. Mary Magdalen is a greater double^ that of
St. Martha only a semi-double. To the first is also accorded tho
Nicone Creed ia the Mass ; which is not read in that 'of any other
female saint except the B. Virgin.

1851.] The Actions of the New Testament. 411

Redeemer, by His conduct, gave her this rule. It was
clear that He granted precedence to the ardent penitent,
whose love and tears had blotted out every trace of guilt,
before her more faultless, but less fervent, sister. It was
really the parable of the Prodigal in action ; the blameless
son who had never left home, saw the best garment pre-
pared, and the fatted calf killed, for his wandering, but
rescued brother.

If then there be truth in all the foregoing remarks, we
come to the following conclusions : That, firstly, it pleased
our Saviour to make His dear Mother His instrument in
the first conveyance of the highest grace, and of the first
fruit of redemption, after He came on earth; secondly,
and similarly, He made her the first cause and motive in
the exercise of His beneficial miraculous powers, in favour
of men ; thirdly. His conduct being always a principle or
rule, we may deduce, that on other similar occasions. He
would have allowed her a similar privilege or right ; and,
fourthly, this argument of analogy does not end with His
life, but gives the Church a just ground of belief and
action, after both He and His Mother have been re-united
in heaven.^ So far, then, from there being any strangeness,
or impropriety, in considering the B. Virgin to be an ordinary
channel of grace, and that of the highest order, such a view
of her position seems borne out^ by our Lord^s^ conduct,
interpreted by the usual rules which we apply to it. This
reasoning places our B. Lady, in the economy of grace, in
the same position which we have seen her occupy in the
economy of faith. She stands immediately next to her
divine Son, above every other created being.

For if we compare her power even with that of the
Apostles, we shall find it of a difierent, and a superior,
character. They had in all fulness a double gift; the
sacramental energy in its completest development, and a
miraculous command over nature and its laws. The first
was surely not comparable to the conveying directly saving
virtue, from the Son of God in her womb, to the Precursor
in Elizabeth's; thereby not only cleansing him from
original sin, but probably arming hini with immunity
against actual transgression, sanctifying him for his
high calling and spotless life. And who will surmise that
it was a higher gift to hold the delegated power of working
miracles from her Son, than to have obedience owned by
Him who communicated it^ and to possess the acknow-

412 The Actions of the New Testament. \DeQ:

ledged subjection of Himself and all His j?ifts? The
meaning of the words, " Et erat subditus eis/'* came out
to its full extent, in the act which closed the hidden life of
Jesus, the miracle of Cana.

ni. When we advance into the active life of the Word
incarnate, every action speaks ; and our difficulty is, out of
so much that is admirable, what to choose as most excelling.
We will take, therefore, as an illustration of our principles,
a series of actions which, separately, may appear indiffer-
ent, but collectively afford a meaning too striking to be
accidental, and yet only fitting into the Catholic system.

Our Lord selected His principal Apostles from among
the fishermen of the Sea of Galilee. The particular cau
of four is especially described, of the brothers Peter, and
Andrew,! and the two sons of Zcbedee.I Thomas also and
Nathanael, supposed to be the same as Bartholomew, were
of the same profession. § The reasons for this selection do
not enter into our present subject; though they are not
without their interest and importance. But the choice
once made, it is evident that our Saviour associated Him-
self to His Apostles in their mode of life,, and made use of
it for His holiest purposes. A great part of the first year
of His public life was passed on the borders of the Sea of
Tiberias or Galilee ; and He took advantage of His Apos-
tles* skill, and familiarity with the coast, to move from
place to place. The fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth chap-
ters of St. Mark will show how the fisherman's boat was
almost His home.|| It was His place of sleep,^ the pulpit
from which He addressed the people,*^^ His refiige in fa-
tigue.ft Now, connected with this frequent use of the boat,
are several remarkable passages of xlis life, which, apart
from their miraculous character, present importantly in-
structive features. Indeed it may not be superfluous to re-
mark, that in some of our blessed Redeemer's acts, the
miracle may be considered as secondary : that is, we mav
contemplate the action independently of any miracle which
accompj^jiied it, and find that what was wonderful was only-
subservient to a lesson, inculcated by the action itseu.

♦ "And He was subject to them."

t Matt, iv, 18. t I^- 21. § Jo. xxi. 2.

II Mark iv. 35 ; V. 2, 18, 21 ; vi. 32, 54 ; viii. 10-14. U lb. iv. Sa

*» Luke V. 3. tt Mark vi. 32.

1851.] The Actions of the New Testament 413

4

Perhaps the instances on which we are going to dilate will
afford the best illustration of this principle.

That our Saviour Himself saw, and consequently de-
signed, an analogy between the Apostle *s and the fisher-
man's occupation, He Himself has deigned to inform us.
*' I will make you fishers of mcn,**^' or '* from henceforth
thou shalt catch men/^j were His words, naturally sugges-
tive of the parallel. But besides this very natural analogy,
there were surely others, which must be considered most
apt, in another view. What more like the Church, launch-
ed on the sea of this world, and, freighted with a heavenly
burthen, borne forwards towards a sure harbour, than the
vessel laden with Apostles, and bearing their Lord, lashed
by the angry billows, and buffeted by the raging blast,
tossed, shaken, distressed, almost broken, yet holding on
her good course, and riding fearless over the wave, and
through the storm ? So natural is this comparison, that
it has ceased to be one. The ^ nave,** or " ship,** of the
material church is no longer so in simile ; and it is scarcely
an allegory to describe the visible, yet spiritual, Church, as
a ship in which Christ is pilot, or as the Catholic would
call it, as the bark of Peter. From the rude galley carved
on the oldest monumental slabs in the catacombs, to Gi-
otto*s mosaic over the inner gate of St. Peter*s, or Raffaele*s
miraculous draught of fishes, the symbol has been con-
tinued, till a very child in the Church can comprehend it.

But wherefore Peter's boat? This it is that we must
see. If our blessed Saviour was pleased to retire into a
vessel, and travel by it, it was not a chance one picked up
on the shore, but one especially chosen by Himself to at-
tend Him. '^ And He spoke to His disciples, that a small
ship should wait upon Him, because of the multitude, lest
they should throng Him.**J What bark was this, so pri-
vileged, and so ennobled, scene too of such wonderful
works ? *^ They that go down to the sea in ships, doing
business on the great waters ; these have seen the works
of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. He said the
word, and there arose a storm of wind, and the waves
thereof were lifted up. They were troubled, and reeled
like a drunken man, and all their wisdom was swallowed
up. And they cried to the Lord in their affliction, and He
brought them out of their distresses. And He turned the

* Matt. iv. 19. t Luke v. 10. % Mark iiL 9.

414 Tlie Actions of the New Testament. [Deo*

storm into a 'breeze, and its waves were still. And they
rejoiced because they were still ; and He brought them to
the haven which they wished for/ '^'^ AH this was more
literally fulfilled in the fisherman's skiflF on Galilee's blue
waters, than ever it was in the proud trader on its ocean
path to Ophir.

There were two boats ever keeping company on that in-
land sea, and they are so mentioned together, that we can
have no difficulty in determining to whom they belonged.
When our Lord began to call His Apostles, the two ves-
sels were close to one another ; He went but a few steps
from Peter's, to find that of Zebedee and his sons.f At
another time going to the lake, He " saw two ships stand-
ing by it, and ^oin^ up into one of the ships that was
Simon's, He desired nim to draw back a little from the
land, and sitting. He taught the multitudes out of the
ship." The other ship was Zebedee's. For having given
Simon a miraculous draught of fishes, " they beckoned to
their partners, that were in the other ship, that they
should come and help them." Simon then fell down at
Jesus' knees, saying : Depart from me, for I am a sinful
man, 0 Lord. For he was wholly astonished, and all
that were with him, at the draught of fishes which they '
had taken. And so also were James and John, the sons
of Zcbcdec, luho were Simoii's partners. And Jesus
said to Simon, 'fear not, from henceforward thou shalt
catch men.' "|

This remarkable passage loaves us no doubf on several
interesting points. Two fishing boats keep company on
the Sea of Galilee. They are consorts, fishing in com-
pany ; paranze, as they are still called on the Mediterra-
nean. One belongs to Peter, the other to the zealous and
loving brothers, the '^ Sons of thunder." But we are
carefully told that Jesus selected the first. Such a detail
was surely of no great consequence in itself ; and if speci-
fied must be so emphatically. It was Simon's boat that
our licdccmer chose. Of what interest was this to The-
ophilus or the Greeks for whom St. Luke wrote, if Peter
was no more than any other Apostle ? Surely the men-
tion of such a circumstance implies that it was not by
accident, but by choice, that his bark was taken for His
use by our Lord. And for what purpose ?

* Pa. cYi. 23. t Matt. iv. 18-21, { Luke t. 2-10.

1851.] The Actions of the New Testament. 415

First, to teach from. This favoured boat is the one
from which the Divine master instructs the multitudes.

Secondly, to bestow on Peter the earnest of his future
success, as the Apostle of Jew and of Gentile. It is impos-
sible to misunderstand the meaning of the allegory per-
formed, not merely spoken. Our heavenly Lord has Him-
self explained it. "From henceforward thou shalt catch
men, as plentifully and as marvellously as, just now, thou
hast caught fishes.* Thou shalt cast thy net into the vast
and dark depths of the earth, and thou shalt draw up in
them safe, and lay up in thy bark, thousands, who shall
bless the hour of thy capture.*' Nor is it possible to mis-
take the relative position of the parties in the scene.
Peter is the chief, the actor ; James and John are but his
assistants, and subordinates in the work. He begins it,
they follow it up ; he receives the Lord's gift, the blessing,
the; miracle, they partake of His fulness, and are enriched
from His store. His stock is superabundant, his measure
well shaken and running over ; and they come to share it,
almost to relieve him of it, as it runs over hi to their bosoms.
And hence it is carefully added, that to Simon were
Christ's words of promise exclusively addressed.

Here we have a case where the miracle is absorbed in
the action. The lesson is to us more important ; for the
miracle is only wrought as a means to convey it. J3ut we
have another miracle perfectly analagous to this, wrought
at a very difiFerent period of our Lord's earthly existence ;
after His Resurrection. Between the two, Peter had given
proof of his frailty, even of his dastardliness. John at the
same time had shown himself faithful, even to the Cross.
Peter, however, in qpmpany with him, his brother, and
other disciples, expressed his intention of going a fishing.
*' They say to him, we come also with thee." Peter there-
fore is again at the head of the party, he is the captain of
*^ the ship;" the rest are his mates and assistants, in other
words, his crew. They toil for the night in vain; at
morning, Jesus, unrecognised by them, stands on the
beach, and bids them cast their net on the right side of the
vessel. Their obedience is^ rewarded by a magnificent
draught : and Peter throws himself into the sea, to reach
his Master, whom John has detected. Once more it is in
favour of Peter's boat and net, that the sea is compelled to
give up its prey; and what makes the occurrence more
personal and pointed is^ that it is immediately fdlowed by

416 Tlie Actions of the New Testament. [Dec.

his Lord's charge, to feed His sheep and lambs."* Here
was the distinct fulfilment of the promise made after the
first miraculous draught. Simon^s humility was there re-
warded by an assurance of future apostleship ; Peter's
penitent love is here crowned hj elevation to its head-
ship. On the first occasion, his virtuous timidity prompt-
cd him to throw hiniself on his knees^ and entreat his
Lord to depart from hini a sinner ; on the second his peni-
tential ardour urged him to dash int# the sea, and ffo
straight to his forgiving Master. Thus completely is the
fishing of Peter's boat, after the Resurrection, the counter-
part of the same action before the denial.

Jesus then taught in Peter's ship, and gave to it the
power of gathering into its nets, the multitude of the deep.
But it was not always to be a calm with it ; storms were to
assail it, even in spite of His benign presence ; storms so
fierce, that they who manned it were to fear, that He had
forgotten them, or had forgotten His power. ** And behold a
great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was cover-
ed with waves; but He was asleep.*' But He soon
awoke at their call ; and, reproving them for their want of
faith. He ** commanded the winds and the sea, and there
came a great calm."t Again we may ask, whose ship was
this, to which this divine favour was accorded, of stilling
the storm, and smoothing the sea? It is not difficult to
ascertain it. We are told that, *'when Jesus was come
into Peter's house, He saw his wife's mother lying, and
sick of a fever ; and He touched her hand, and the fever
left her, and she arose and ministered to them." At even-
ing multitudes come to be healed; "and Jesus seeing
great multitudes about Him, ;rave orders to pass the water,
and when he entered into the boat. His disciples followed
Him. "I It is from Peter's house that He steps into the
vessel ; who can doubt that it was that Apostle's ? And
we may observe, that our Lord acts as the master of the
boat. He commands its services, as He afterwards did
that of the ass for His entry into Jerusalem. " Tell him
that the Lord hath need of it, and he will let it go."§ To
Peter's boat is gmnted this fiirther privilege, that storms
may be permitted to assail it, but not to wreck it, nor even to
shatter it. The waves may dash over it, and threaten to en-

* John xxi, 2-17. t Matt viii. 24. [{ Matt viii. 14-23.

§ Mutt. zxi. 3.

1851.] The Actions of the New Testament. 417

galf it^ all may think it is about to perish, and Jesus may ap-

Sar asleep, and heedless of their danger. But in good time,
e wakens up, and His beeming eye is as the sun upon
the billows, and His hand waves with a charm against the
blast ; and the rippling waters dance, rejoice, and sparkle
in the light, and the soothing breeze glides playfully into
the sail.

If the bark represent the Church of God, where is His
Church ? What is there that assumes the name, that has
ever weathered a real storm, or rather that lives in the
midst of tempests, with consciousness of a life that cannot
fail, and of a vigour that cannot abate ? Is it the stationaiy
religion of the east, for ages water-logged and motionless,
in waters dead and pestilent ; neither battling with them,
nor assailed by them, left in unrippling but fatal calm ; ori-
ginally too well framed to fall to pieces, but stripped of
mast and sail, and rolling heavily with the dull swell and
fall, of the element in which it happens to be embedded ?
For it has itself

** nor breath nor motion ;
As idle as a painted ship, '

Upon a painted ocean."*

Unhonoured by persecution, not bearing even the note of
the world's hatred, the Christianity of Asia feeds its lan-
guid life, upon paynira toleration, without an aspiration of
hope, or an eflFort of charity. It sends no missionary to dis-
tant regions to pluck the palm of martyrdom ; it gives to
the world no sisters of mercy, no brothers of Christian
doctrine, no active clergy, no learned hierarchs, no studious
monks, no zealous laity. It dreams on from age to age,
achieving nothing great, and yielding nothing good ; add-
ing nothing to the knowledge or experience of the past, and
opening no bright destiny to the prospect of the future. It
is not worth a storm, the lazy, slumbering craft. Neither
has it a net to cast abroad or to draw home. It is quite
clear this is not Peter's boat.

Then what shall we say of a more splendid and well-
laden vessel nearer home, which calls itself modestly a
branch only of Christ's Church? Surely there is some stir,
ii* not activity, about it ; internal commotion, if not on-
ward progress. Every modem improvement is there, to

♦ Coleridge,

418 The Actions of the New Testament. [Dec.

hide defects^ or to mend imperfections ; all is trim, neat,
and respectable, as on any other vessel belonging to the
state. And it is splendidly manned, with skilful^ officers
and a zealous crew, whose whole interest is in its pros-

Eerity. Abundance and comfort are provided for all on
oard. ^ But it keeps carefully under the shelter of a safe
shore, it tempts not the storm, it shuns the perils of the
deep. Its sails and masts are not made for rude conflict
with the wind and wave, it loves the smoother waters of
vicinity to earth.

** Nil pictis timidus navita puppibus
Fidit : tu, nisi ventis
Debes ludibrium, cave/**

It has not the fisherman's blessing; it draws into its
own compass nothing from without; it sends out quietly
and decently, as a genteel angler might, not as depending
on it, its well ordered tackle ; but it pretends not even to
gain, by it, increase. ?Yct of conflict and clamour it has
enough. Within all is dissension, contention, strife. It
is no wonder that it does not move. If its chief com-
mander set the sails in one direction, his mate will trim
them oppositely on another mast. If one rows forward, the
other strikes backwards. And still more strange, there
are those who applaud, and think their bark is going bravely
on, because one out of twenty engaged in its direction,
pulls alone against the rest. This surely was no more
than the other, the ship to which it was said " Due in
altum,** go out into deep waters, and there face the bil-
lows, and throw into them the apostolic net. It is none
of Peter's boat.

And moreover these, and others, have one complete dis-
qualification : they profess not to be Peter's bark. They
repudiate the connection ; they are indignant at being
supposed to have anything special to say to him. They
have made their choice of another ship, or of many smaller
craft, but they will take particular care that it be not his.
Anything but that. Now St. Mark tells us, that when
our blessed Lord went into the ship, where he slept during
the storm, *' there were other ships with Him,"t that is,
keeping in His wake. What became of them during the
tempest ? We hear no more of them. Only one ship had

* Horace. t Mark iv. 36.

1851.] Tlie Actions of Uie New Testament. 419

Jesus on board, and only of it is the Gospel narrative.
They may have put back to harbour, they may have been
dispersed in the darkness ; some may have been cast on
shore. But we read of only one that reached its destina-
tion, because only one bore the sure Pilot, and the Queller
of the storm ; and that was Peter's.

But there remains one more instance, in what we may
term the sea-faring part of our Saviour's mission, of its
connection with St Peter's prerogatives. We allude to
the miracle of our Lord's walking on the waters, related
succinctly by St. John,"'" and more fully hj St. Matthew, f
In the storm above described, Jesus was in the boat, but
sleeping ; here He was absent, but near. In the midst of
the tempest He appears walking on the waters. The
Apostles are terrified, and their Divine Master reassures
them. There is one of them, however, bolder than the
rest. As afterwards he casts himself into the sea to swim
to his Lord, so now Peter claims the desperate evidence of
walking to Him on the waters. It was a test worthy of
himself; ever ardent, ever eager. " Lord, if it be Thou,
bid me come to Thee upon the waters. And he said:
Come. And Peter going down out of the boat walked
upon the waters, to come to Jesus." It was important,
nevertheless, that he should be informed of the danger
into which his ardent temperament would lead him. As
later he would protest his readiness to die rather than deny
his Lord, and yet would fail ; so here it was expedient to
show him, of how little avail would be his own strength
where supernatural support was needed. For, " seeing the
wind strong, he^ was afraid ; and when he began to sink, he
cried out, saying: Lord, save me. And immediately
Jesus stretching forth His hand, took hold of him, and
said to him: 0 thou of little faith,^ why didst thou doubt?
And when they were come up into the boat the wind
ceased." Now here are several remarkable circumstances.
Peter alone claims the right of walking uj^on the billows.
It is not the ship that must support him ; it is not because
he is in it, that he does not perish. He has a power inde-
pendent of it, so to speak ; which no other Apostle has.
The right hand of Jesus is directly his support, when fear-
less and alone he commits himself to the troubled waters.
To doubt that, so supported, he has this marvellous prero-

♦ John vi. 19. t Matt. xiv. 26.

420 The Actions of ilie New Testament [Dec.

gative, IS to be of little faith. He is allowed partially to
si{ik, that this reproof may be administered to him ; and,
through him, to us. Aud then, *' when they came up
into the boat, the wind ceased.*' Tor they go together
hand in hand, Jesus and Peter, the Head sublime, invi-
sible, and divine, and the Head inferior, visible, and
earthly, of the Church — the hand of one is power, the
other's is confidence; thus linked they give security.
Both ascend the ship together, from which they seemed to
have withdrawn their care, Master and pilot ; and to their
joint presence is attributed the calm. Can any one believe
that there was no connection between our Saviour's act
and Peter's ? That the one was not performed for the
sake of the other? Did Jesus defer accompanying His
disciples, and follow them walking on the waters, and,
instead of thus passing over the narrow sea, go on board
their boat half way across only to astonish them ? Is all
that relates to Peter merely secondary? On the con-
trary, no one can read this passage, and doubt that the
whole narrative is inserted mainly for the sake of the
Apostle's share in it. It is clearly the lesson of the
history.

Now let us come to our practical conclusions from all
that we have here put together.

1. It is evident that our Saviour, during his mission in
Galilee, wished, or rather ordered, that a boat should
attend Him, from which He preached, and in which He
sailed. And though His beloved disciple had one at His
disposal. He gave preference to that of Peter.

2. Three classes of miracles are recorded, as taking
place in connection with the boat aud its occupation : two
miraculous draughts of fishes, two quellings of storms,
and our Lord and Peter walking on the water.

3. Every one of these is wrought in favour of this
Apostle or his bark; and the discourses preceding or
following these relate to him.

In the first draught of fishes, as we have seen, he is
ordered to go into the deep and cast his net ; and after his
successful obedience, the promise is made to him that he
shall take men. ^ In other words, our Saviour shows that
the material action was symbolical of a spiritual one ; and
the miracle wrought was a proof or guarantee of the truth
of the promise. It was as though our Lord had said:
yin the same wonderful manner, by the same power.

1851.] The Actions of ilie New Testament. 421

to the same extent, and as surely as you have this day
taken such an unwonted netful! of fishes, you shall in due
time haul from the depths of sin, misery, and ignorance,
the souls of men/* In the second, it is reter who has led
forth the Apostles to their work, and again a miraculous
capture rewards him, upon obeying the same command.
So completely was it his, that when ^' Jesus saith to them.
Bring hither of the fishes which you have now caught,
Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land ;**^ a net
which, though overlaxien, was not allowed to break. The
other Apostles had brought the net to the shore, but it
required the presence of Peter to draw it upon land. And
in what did this miracle end ? In nothing but the fulfil-
ment of the assurance, given him after the earlier corres-
ponding miracle. Our Lord here met his disciples, appa-
rently for only one purpose, to invest Peter, before them,
with the dignity of supreme Pastor. The only discourse
that follows, is the thrice-repeated commission to feed the
flock; and as if to show that all was then ended, Jesus
leads his now inducted Vicar away from the rest, for con-
fidential discourse, by adding, ** Follow me.'* So indivi-
dual was this call, that when Peter would have had his,
and Christ's, loved one to join him, he was checked and
refused by the words : *' What is it to thee ? follow thou
me.*'! It seems impossible to reject the analogy between
the two passages, and not to consider one as the comple-
ment of the other. In both, Peter is the distinct end of
the miracle, both wrought in his favour, and introduc-
tonr to his privileges.

In the two cases of stilling the storni, the same connec-
tion with the Prince of the Apostles is to be found. In
his boat our Lord appears to slumber, and awakes to re- '
preach His followers generally, for want of faith, or confi-
dence in Him, and for fear that the vessel could founder,
in which He was pleased to abide. In the second instance
He seems to them to be further ofi*, to be out of the ship,
and the storm goes on, till He and Peter have shown
themselves on board.

Finally, not to repeat what has been so lately described,
Peter is taught to tread fearlessly the waters alone ; and
is reproved, m particular, for want of confidence in his
powers to do so, in the very words addressed to all the

* Joha xxi. 10. t Joha xxi. 19-22,

422 The Actions of the New Testament. [Dec.

Apostles in the first storm. As though it were said
to him : '* If the others showed weakness, in^ doubting^ of
their safety in the boat, thou dost the same, in hesitating
about thy security independent of it. Besides the assur-
ing presence of Jesus in the ship, thou hast His right hand
supporting thee, in personal safety, over the abyss. This
can no more swallow up thee, than it/' And this
assurance is confirmed to him by the miracle.

We certainly do not mean to deny, that our Lord may,
in the course of His Galilean niission, have entered other
barks, besides Peter's. But this we claim as proved, that
the Holy Spirit has been pleased to select for our special
instruction, out of no matter how many, those occurrences
in which St. Peter is specially concerned. A Protestant
will say : this is merely accidental and secondary ; what
matters it if the boat were his, or anybody else's, the mi-
racles and lessons were independent of this consideration.
Now a Catholic has too much reverence to treat inspired
writings so. With us there is no chance, no accident, in
what God does, or says. We cannot consider it a mere
result of blind chance, that every evangelist should have
given us narratives of our Lord's 'Agoing down to the sea
in ships," and yet have, in every specific instance, been
careful to let us know that Peter's was the chosen bark.
Moreover, we cannot consider it accidental, that every
single miracle wrought on board, should have been con-
nected with him. If it was matter of indifierence whose
the boat was which Jesus took, if no lesson depended on it,
why are we distinctly told, that there were two boats, and
that he selected one, which was Simon's ?

All this is unimportant to a Protestant because it bears
on nothing in his system. When even he may be disposed
to allow, that the ship tossed by the storm was an emblem
of the Church, and Jesus subduing the war of elements no
unfit symbol of His ruling presence in her, he will not see
any connection with the destinies of the vessel, in the pre-
sence of Peter. He gives no definite meaning to those
clear and most dogmatic passages, in which supremacy is
bestowed on him. And so all the beauty and interest of
a minute application of each detail, which we have drawn,
perhaps tediously, forth, is lost upon him.

But the Catholic has begun by taking in their literal
force, those passages in which Peter is as closely bound
with the constitution of the Church, as the foundation is

1851.] The Actions of the New Testament. 423

with a building. The safety of one is the security of the
other. He becomes an essential, not an accidental part, a
primary, not a secondary element, in its formation. The
Church of Peter is also the Church of Christ, because the
fold of Christ is likewise the fold of Peter. These princi-
ples laid down, in obedience to other positive teachings of
Christ, all the narratives which we have analysed have a
consistent meaning, as well as a definite object. They not
only cohere most admirably, but they complete, and illus-
trate, most beautifully, the constitution of the Church.

According to this view, the Church is but one ; for
though there may be other, and stately looking ships,
launched upon the ocean, there is necessarily only one in
which Jesus is pleased to abide : and that is Peter's. To
it alone is given assurance of safety, whatever storms may
assail it ; for in it alone is He, whom winds and waves
obey. All are safe who are embarked in it, none who are
without it. To it alone is committed the work, not only
of mastering, but still more of gaining, the world. It is
not a rich argossy laden with treasure, nor a lofty galley
rowed by captives, nor a fierce war-ship, bristling with
instruments of destruction, but a fisherman's craft, intent
on filling itself with living spoil, snatched from the gulf
of destruction. Now when the Catholic reads all this
described in allegory, by our Saviour's actions on the sea,
and notes how exactly it fits his theory of the Church,
whereof Peter is the head, his faith is strengthened and
his heart consoled. For he discovers a purpose in every
detail, in every word ; and sees that each has been regis-
tered for his sake. These lesser coincidences serve to
confirm a belief, based upon direct teaching ; they fill up
the picture, they add to it colour and life. If the Catholic
view is risht, and if Peter was meant to occupy in the
Church of Christ, the place which it assigns him, then
every smallest particle of these narratives has its signifi-
cativeness, and was studiously recorded for an important
purpose. Kemove him from it, and there is no intended
meaning in the details of their histories; or rather, we
reverently say it, they are calculated to confirm, what the
Protestant must consider, an erroneous system.

And not only is the Catholic strengthened in his dog-
matic convictions by these corroborative, and supple-
mentary, arguments, but he derives from them most com-
forting assurances. It is uo fancy-picture that comes

424 Tlie Actions of the New Testament. [Dec.

before him, when he thinks of the tempest-tossed fisher-
man's bark. He looks at its trials and its triumphs
through the very mist of ages. Afar, as if leaving the dis-
tant coast, its first harbour, he beholds it steering straight
for the very port of the earth's capital, in serenest confi-
dence. It is not long before the gates of hell let forth, a
blast more fearful than -^olus could command from^ his
cavern of storms. The abyss is upheaved, and the might
of earth sweeps over it, to destroy the daring invader,

" Ponto nox incubat atra
Intonuere poll, et crebris micat ignibus aether :
Prsesentemque viris intentant omnia mortem."*

But death from such a tempest has charms for the
valiant crew. On, the fearless little bark holds its course ;
now it is almost lost to sight in the war of persecuting
elements, now it crests nobly the topmost wave, till we
find it safe riding in smooth water. Peter has been
acknowledged the spiritual conqueror of Rome. Yet he
must not rest. After the Resurrection he said, *'I go
a fishing," and this is his occupation, and his delight, till
the end of time. What a glorious employment it has been
to him! How his h6art rejoiced, much more than on
taking a hundred and fifty-three large fishes, when Patrick
drew in his net on Erin's coast, or Augustin on England's,
or Boniface in Germany's deep streams, and brought into
the ample ship their willing inhabitants ! Nor was this
calm and peaceful pastime for him. High in the regions
of the North commenced a swelling surge, which broke, in
successive waves, over the toiling bark. Hun, Vandal,
Goth, and Lombard, in rapid course followed each other,
and seemed to overwhelm it in their turn. And still the
fisherman went on ; while his tempost^tight skiff shook off
the cataract of waters, he plied his net in its very depths,
and carried from them their living prey. And now again
came the calm, and the ocean seemed still. But soon the
storm began a^ain. The rude assault of a rough, indocile
age, of the world of an iron chivalry, broke loose, again and
again, a^rainst the charmed ship of Peter. For centuries
the conflict lasted, and the gallant vessel held on its course,
dashing the spray from its prow. Then came a trial, for-
gotten for ages — since Ai'ius and Nestorius divided the

♦ iEaoid i.

1851.] The Actionslof the New Testament. 425

Church. Mutiny on board, hisubordination, rebellion.
Treacherous crews, from its own decks, man a hostile fleet ;
its own skill and prowess, leapt within it, are turned
against it. Able foes, armed with all the powers of earth,
threaten her destruction, and swear implacable hatred.
And still the noble vessel fears them not, but goes
undaunted on her errand. She sees them tossed to and
fro by every wind, sailing apart, without compass to guide
them, quarrelling with one another, and only combined
when they agree to assail her ; and she notes how they
have not been able to bear away with them the grace of
her noblest functions ; no shred of the Apostolic net has
been allowed to be filched from her. She alone bears
aloft the Cross as her banner; she alone boasts that
Peter, in his successor, sits at her helm ; nay, she alone
dares proclaim that she has Jesus Christ Himself on
board, as He was on the fisherman's craft on the sea of
Galilee. Such is the Catholic's review of the past, and in
it he reads the assurance of the future. When, a year
ago, this country was agitated from end to end, in opposi-
tion to Catholic progress; when the Government, the
Parliament, the Establishment, the Press, the aristocracy,
seemed combined to thwart the purely ecclesiastical action
of the Church ; when all that clamour, eloquence, inso-
lence, and calumny, addresses, speeches, meetings, essays,
and journalism could do, to raise a storm, was unsparingly
and perseveringly carried on for months, to overwhelm the
new hierarchy ; in what did we place our hopes, nay, our
assurance, that peace would return, and the Church would
be justified, by results, in the wise measure which she had
taken ? Not merely in the knowledge that such a step had
been long and wisely considered, not in the high estimate
which we had formed, of the virtues and^ifts of the
Supreme Pastor from whom it proceeded. But knowing
that the Letters Apostolic which he issued were given
under *^ the Fisherman's Ring," we could not be of little
faith, or doubt that what thus was declared to be the solemn
act of Peter, partook in the promises made to him, and the
assurances given, that his bark should not be crushed
by the tempests of earth. And so when pontiff after
pontiff, like the sixth, the seventh, or the ninth, Pius,
seemed borne apart from the vessel which he guided, to
experience, in his own person, the whole violence of the

VOL. XXXI.-N0. LXII. 8

426 Vie Actions of the New Testament. [Dec.

stomi, and walk alone over the troubled and treacherous
waters, never did the Catholic doubt, that the j)Oweiful
right hand, in which the Psalmist trusted, and which was
stretched forth to Peter, would support them, and guide
them, and bring them safe back, if necessary, to the
faithful friends from whom, in body, they had been torn.
" Exenim illuc manus Tuadeducet me, et tenebit me dexr
tera Tua/'

IV. W e will now briefly bring together a few passages,
which refer to a point of secondary importance, but not
devoid of interest. Among the puzzling inconsistencies
of Protestantism is its Sabbatarian theory. After protest-
ing, in every possible way, against tradition> and Church
authority, the Protestant acceijts, without a murmur, the
change of the Jewish Sabbath into the Christian Sunday,
of which the onljr voucher is tradition, and the only foun-
dation ecclesiastical authority. Having thus admitted per-
haps the greatest stretch of this power and of that testi-
mony that exists, he begins to forget that any change has
been made, and applies to the new day of rest, all the bur-
thens and restrictions of the old. He tries to overlook that it
is the first, and not the last, day of the week ; nay, if he
become more solemn in his si>eech, through increased
rigour of religious notions, he rejects the profane name of
*' Sunday," and studiously and emphatically styles it " the
Sabbath.'* These two terms have become positively
watch-words ; a Catholic never uses the latter. ** Sun-
day'* sounds to his ears as a day of radiance and joy ; as
a day of smiles at home, and laughing peak of gladness
in the air ; as a day of cheerful service to Him who loves
a cheerful giver, in canticles and hymns, and noble offices
of prayer. ^ But ** Sabbath'* rings with Puritanism in the
ears, and gives the idea of drawling sounds, and sour looks,
of bitter theology and domestic gloom. There is no balnii-
ness, no sweetness in the name. It belongs to a dispensa-
tion that is dead, and to obligations which the law of love
has abated, or abolished. But singularly enough, that
religious system which affects to put all its faith in Christ,
and to loath the Law and its works, by a judicial blindness,
clings to its very deadest branches, and tries to find there
its most nutricious fruit. Having reduced all its practical
worship to the conipass of one day, it makes that a
mere superstition ; it condenses, only to corrupt.

What makes this strange infatuation still more amazing

1851.] Tfie' Actions of the New Testament. 427

is, that in the New Testament, it^ is so clearly attributed,
as a characteristic, to the Pharisee. A simple-minded
reader of the Gospel would naturally ask, who defended
Sabbatarian strictness, our Lord, or His enemies? Who
there represent the strait-laced party?. It is impossible
to hesitate in answering.

Not less than seven times in the Gospel history, He lays
down His doctrine of the Sabbath, in opposition to Phari-
saical objections. Surely He must have considered this an
important question of moral and ecclesiastical observance,
so to expound it. But applying our often repeated rule,
we must conclude, that, supposing our Redeemer to have
never spoken besides on the subject, there was a particular
reason for recording so many different inculcations of one
idea. If, on the other hand, we maintain that He much
oftener argued the point, we must still conclude, that a
strong motive led to so many repetitions of the same sub-
ject, in a record so limited as the Gospel. In other words,
the selection of this topic seven times, in picking out the
materials of that sacred history from a mass left behind,
proves it to be one on which the spirit of God was pleased,
that we should accurately know the divine doctrine in the
New Law. It sho^vs an earnestness in guarding Christi-
anity against a particular theory ; and we may safely con-
clude, against one^ sure^ to be taught. We niust therefore
take actual, not imaginary, systems ; and judge which
among them our Saviour taught, and which he excluded.
Without ejitering into the details of each case, we will
analyse the evidence before us, and reduce it to distinct
heads. ^

1. First therefore^ we will remark, that all the Gospels
give more than one instance, of attack ivpon our Lord for
laxity on Sabbath observance. St. Matthew and St.
Mark give two cases ; St. Luke gives four, two being the
same as those evangelists record; and St. John three, per-
fectly distinct ones. This concurrence of the inspired
writers on a secondary topic is very striking.

2d. Of these cases, three directly accompany in the per-
formance of miracles, three are indirectly connected with
miraculous works, and one relates to an ordinary occur-
rence.

3d. We will proceed with the first class. A withered hand

428 The Actions of the New Testament. [Dec.

is cured in tte synagogue.* This is done with previous
attention called to the fact of its being the Sabbath day ;
the Pharisees put the question whether it be lawful to heal
on that day ; and Jesus first defends the propriety of doing
it, and then confirms His assertion by the miraculous cure.
A man sick with dropsy comes into the house of a Phari-
see, where He is a guest. It is again the Sabbath, and
His enemies " watch Him.*' He, this time, puts the very
question to them which, on the former occasion, they had
put to Him ; '* Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day ?'*
Again He argues the .point, and performs a miracle to
prove His doctrine.f A woman bowed down by an ail-
ment of eighteen years' duration is in the synagogue on
the Sabbath ; she does not ask to be relieved ; but Jesus
calls her: and lays His blessed hands upon her, and she
is made straight. " The ruler of the synagogue (being
angry that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath) answering
said to the multitude,*' (that is, not liking to address our
Lord, with whom, in reality, he was displeased, reproved
Him through the people, /^ saying, Six days there are
wherein ye ought to work, in these therefore come and be
healed, and not on the Sabbath day. "J Again our Lord
replies, vindicating what He had done, and beginning His
answer by the significant words: *^Ye hypocrites !"^

The next inst^mce is also one in wnich the attack is first
made through the subject of the miracle. Jesus cured a
man at the pool of Bethsaida, saying to him : ^* Arise, take
up thy bed and walk." He obeyed ; '* and it was the
Sabbath that day." Immediately he was told, " It is the
Sabbath, it is not lawful for thee to take up thy bed/'
Upon discovering that Jesus had given him the conunand,
the Jews transfer their hatred to Him. " Therefore did
the Jews persecute Jesus, because he did these things on
the Sabbath." And when He again defended Himself,
saying, that as His Father worked until now, so He worked;
that is, that as His Father, on the Sabbath, went on with
His beneficent work of Providence, so did He, who had
the same power; the Jews only redoubled their hatred.
''Hereupon therefore the Jews sought the more to kUl
Him, because He did not only break the Sabbath, but

* Matt. xii. 10 ; Mark iii. 2 ; Luke vi. 6. t Luke xiv. 1.

X Lake ziii. 10.

1861.1 The Actions of the New Testament. 429

also said God was His Father, making Himself equal to
God/'^

After this discourse, our blessed Lord left Jerusalem,
where it took place, and taught in Galilee ; on His return
to the holy city, he again returned to this subject, in the
following singular terms : ^* One work I have done, and
ye all wonder. Therefore Moses gave you circumcision
— ^and on the Sabbath day you circumcise a man. If a
man receive circumcision on the Sabbath day, that the
law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry at me,
because I have healed the whole man on the Sabbath
day V*\ Now, no miracle has preceded this speech, in the
Gospel narrative ; and as we can hardly suppose the allu-
sion to be made to the miracle wrought at a former visit,
nor could that be called " one work, * for many signs had
been wrought between, we are naturally led to suppose,
that St. John, or rather the divine Spirit, considered the
record of this instruction more important than that of the
miracle. The latter was therefore omitted, and the former
preserved.

Again the Pharisaical spirit is roused, when Jesus per-
forms one of the most severely tested of His miracles, the
cure of the man bom blind. He might at once have restored
his sight by a word or touch. He preferred performing the
cure, by what might be called a mechanical, or manual,
labour. He made clay, and therewith anointed the man's
eyes. " Now it was the Sabbath, when Jesus made clay,
and opened his eyes.'* This is sufficient ^ound with the
Pharisees for rejecting the miracle. " This man is not of
God, who keepeth not the Sabbath."!

One more instance remains, wholly unconnected with any
miraculous operation ; yet three evangelists have recorded
it The incident is trifling, but its instruction very great.
The Apostles going through a corn-field on the Sabbath,
pluck the ripe ears, rub them in their hands, and eat the
grains. This mechanical operation is construed by the
Pharisees into a breach of the Law, and reproved as such.
Our Redeemer defends them, in the same manner as He
bad defended Himself. § What gives particular interest to
this case is, that each evangelist who records it, proceeds
immediately to the narrative of the cure of the withered

♦ John v. 1. t John vii. 22. } John ix. 14.
§ Matt. xii. 1 ; Mark ii. 23 ; Luke yi. 1.

430 The Actions of the New Testament. [Dec.

hand, as though our Lord wrought this miracle expressly
to confirm His vindication of the Apostles,

4. From all these facts we conclude, that in seven eases^
two views of Sabbath observance were discussed between
our Saviour and the Jews ; and that in every one, He re-
presents and upholds the lenient and moderate side, they
the intolerant and oppressive. Now, a similar discrepancy
exists at the present day, between Catholics and Protes-
tants, and there can be no doubt which party corresponds
to each of the former disputants. It may be saia that
zeal for the Sabbath was carried to excess by the Jews,
in every one of these instances, far beyond what the most
infatuated Sabbatarian nowadays would require. We are
not so sure of that. We need not go back to the days of
wild puritanical fanaticism, for instances of extreme ri-
gour on this subject. We need not travel to old lianbury
for the well-known enforcement on feline propensities, of
Sabbath observance, by making a solemn example of the
cat that presumed to mouse on the Sunday, But we re-
collect not many years a<xo a case of death from starvation
at a large town in the West of England, because the so-
ciety from which relief was sought, rigidly refused to grant
it on the Lord's day. Still more recently a well-known
instance was publicly quoted, of a lady of high rank, who
in vain implored conveyance by railway in Scotland, to pay
the last offices^ of affection to a dying relation, though
empty mail trains passed to and fro. And we know that
a similar refusal was made to a Catholic ecclesiastic of
high dignity in the same country, when it was the only
means of bearing the last rights of religion to a departing
parishioner. ^ Now here is Sabbatical observance preferred
to charity ; in one instance, though death might be, and
was, the consequence. This is carrying the principle to
the full Pharisaic standard. ** Come and be healed on
week-days.'' In fact, what would any of the four who were
purposely cured on the Sabbath, have lost by waiting till
next morning ? After eighteen, and thirty-eight years', in-
firmity, one day more would not have been a heavy addition :
the dropsical patient could still walk, and therefore could
not be in any danger ; and the withered hand could not bo
much needed on the Jewish Sabbath. Had our Lord
said, in these cases: "to-morrow come and I will heal
you, for this is the Sabbath," He would have spoken
words with which Exeter Hall would have rung, and giveu

1851.] Tlie Actions of the New Testament. 431

a text to be stereotyned by tract dealers, and engraved for
children's copies. 13 ut He says exactly the contrary al-
ways ; and we find the upholders of the Sabbatical super-
stition, they who pretend to look to our Saviour for every-
thing, carefully overlooking His^ teaching on the subject,
suppressing His words, and running to the law of fear, and
its abolished rigours, nay to its exaggerated traditions
among the Jews, for the pattern of their observance.

5. On the other hand, they tax Papists, particularly on
the Continent, with being habitual Sabbath breakers. We
condemn utterly every violation that is contrary to the
laws of the Church ; all traffic, public works, shop-keep-
ing, and unnecessary business. But we reprove no less
the other extreme, which forms the Protestant principle.
Rest was not meant to be idleness, and no Christian festi-
val was intended to be gloomy. One cannot fail to be
struck by the strong language employed by our Redeemer,
when He denounced the rule of Sabbath observance,
which our modem reformers have selected, " Ye hypo-
crites !*' And the charge of this hateful vice is fully justi-
fied by what we read in the passages refen'ed to. The
poor disciples pluck some ears of corn, " being hungry/'
and eat them. The Pharisees immediately cry out, " Be-
hold Thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do on the
Sabbath days.''"^ And then we find, that " when Jesus
went into the house of one of the chief of the Pharisees, on
the Sabbath day to eat bread, they watched Him.'^f
Now, is not this exactly the case with our modem Sabba-
tarians? they always have one law of observance for the
rich, and another for the poor. The one must not pluck an
ear of corn on the Sabbath, without the rich man's repre-
hending him, and then going home to his luxurious dinner
with his friends. It used to be proposed to suppress all
Sunday cooking in public bakeries, where alone the poor
could have a warm meal prepared, on their only day of rest ;
but no Sir Andrew ever dreamt of shutting off the steam
of the boiler, or putting a break on the smoke-jack, of aris-
tocratic kitchens. There is something hypocritically pro-
fane in the spectacle, described as taking place on a
Sunday at fashionable Scotch kirks, of some twenty car-
riages at the door, with their human appurtenances, wait-
ing, for devout listeners. to a discourse against Sunday

* Matt. xi. 2. t Luke xiv. I,

432 The Actions of the New Testament. lDec«

travelling ! Nor have we ever heard that the eloquent
Boanerges ever whispered a wee word of reproof to the
gentle folks, for their zeal to lay the burthens of the law,
only on the already overburthened shoulders of the poor.
Depend upon it, he never called them ** hypocrites/'
though that is Scripture.

6. However inconsistent was the Pharisee's theory of
having a good dinner himself, while he was horrified at a
hungry poor man's rubbing the wheat ears in his hand, to
eat them, our dear Lord, who looked to our instruction,
did not hesitate to dine with him on that day. And He
justified His conduct b^ the cure of the dropsical man,
who possibly presented himself with the connivance of tho
host ; for he, with his friends, were " watching'' our Lord
before the cure. He did not, however, despise Jewish pr^
judices merely to this extent. He braved natred and per-
secution, for His views and practice regarding the Sabbath.
St. Luke tells us, that the Scribes and Pharisees ou
account of His healing on the Sabbath-day, "were
filled with madness, and thev talked to one anotner, what
they might do to Jesus."* ot Matthew explains, that this
consultation was, *^ how they might destroy Jesus, "f St.
John informs us, that *^ therefore did the Jews persecute
Jesus, because He did these things on the Sabbath."! This
contempt for the prejudices of the bigot Jews, this braving
of their hatred and persecution, for the sake of a principle
oil such a subject, at once stamps the view of those men
with the note of reprobation and wickedness. One so meek
as Jesus, who had come to " fulfil all justice," who assert-
ed boldly, and with divine truth, that " not a jot nor tittle
of the Law should pass away," who attended to every legal
obligation, from His twelfth year to the eve of His death,
who would *^ not bruise the broken reed, nor extinguish
the smoking flax," so tender was His tread to be on earth ;
one, in fine, who was come to purchase the soul of the
most cynical Pharisee at as dear a rate as that of His holy
Mother, mugt have considered that an evil principle, which
He crushed so unmercifully seven times, and which to
uproot, he braved the fury and hatred of the dominant
party in church and state. Hence the Catholic moralist
well understands the term scandalum pharUaicum as

Luke vi. 11. t Matt. zii. 14. X John v. 16.

1851.] The Actions of the New Testament. 433

opposed to the scandalum pusillorunii^ the first of which
may safely be despised ; but the latter, never.

7. Finally our Lord, whose example so clearly sustains
the temperate and Christian views of the Catholic Church
on this ritual question, lays down principles conformable to
His practice, which form the basis of this Churches conduct.
** The Son of Man is the Lord also of the Sabbath ; the
Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sab*
bath.'* These two aphorisms contaiil the whole of our
doctrine and of our discipline on the subject. He who de-
clared Himself Lord of the Sabbath, also said to His
Apostles : '^ All power is given to Me in heaven and ou
earth ; as My Father hath sent me, so I also send you.**t
Within the compass of this delegated power came the Sab-
bath ; and the Catholic at once acquiesces in the transfer
of its obligations, by the Apostles, to the Sunday. And if
the Sabbath was made to serve man, whereas man, was
not created to be the slave of the Sabbath, — man's true
interests are to be the standard, whereby the Church will
ever regulate her precepts respecting it. Moroseness and
debauchery are equally alien from her thoughts : nor could
the spouse of Christ have devised a mode of spending it,
whicn makes its morning dull, and its evening dissipated.
It could not have crammed into it the spiritual duties
of the six other days, and so made it an iron yoke.
It could not have sanctified it, by excluding from it
the performance of even charitable works. It could
not nave consecrated it to stupidity and sloth, by
withdrawing fi-om it all innocent recreation and re-
freshing cheerfulnees. All this would not have been con-
sidering or treating the Sabbath as made for man. This
can only be the case where it promotes his happiness ; where
it instmcts his mind, applies rightly his intellect, tones
his feelings, by a gentle sway, to wholesome kindliness,
raises his thoughts by a noble and bftautiful worship, improves
his social and domestic relations by a more virtuous inter-
course, invigorates his frame by seasonable repose, mingled
with temperate recreation ; and, in fine, makes him live one
day of every seven of his life, under the chastening discip-
line of religion, but still more under the sweet influence of
God's countenance, felt to be more present, more benign,

* " Pharisaical scandal/* and *' scandal of Christ*s little ones.

t Matt, xxyiii. 18 ; John zx. 21.

»»

434 The Actions of the New Testament. [Dec.

more radiant than on other days, with an eye more watchful,
indeed, over evil, but more open to our better deeds.
This is the Lord's Day of the New Law; this is the
Sunday, on which the glory of the spiritual firmament
reifrns supreme.

V. We opened our essay with the transactions of our
blessed Saviour's infancy, and we will close it with the last
actions of His life. . We promise to be very concise.

Here, as in the noblest tragedy, action becomes equiva-
lent to suffering, and our Redeemer may be said to do for
man, whatever man does against Him. Now, to our
minds, there is nothing more decisive of the respective
claims of Catholic and Protestant to be the religion of the
New Testament, than the manner in which they treat its
most solemn portion, that which records the final act of
redemption. The very essence of modern Protestautism
is to treat this greatest act as a mere abstraction. The
mind is concentrated on the sole apprehension of an accom-
plished atonement, and its instrumentality by death. By
a process eminently selfish, the price and its purchase are
transferred to the individual soul appropriated by it, and
are viewed extraneously to Him whose they really are.
There is no contemplation in the Protestant view, it is one
of mere self-application. To contrast it with the Catholic
idea, and so illustrate both, perhaps a simple parable may
be useful.^

Let us imagine to ourselves two spendthrifts, for whose
debts a loving father has given bond ; the day of reckon-
ing comes, and the surety comes willingly to pay the ran-
som. One son stands by, grateful indeed, but cold and
calculating.^ He looks not at the huge sum that is count-
ed out, but is eagerly waiting for the last coin to be told,
and then exultingly cries out, "I am free," and goes his way.
But there is another beside him, who watches with the
intensest gaze every particle of the precious offering,
because he knows what it has cost his father to procure it.
In every piece he recognises the fruit of some privation
undergone, or some cruel humiliation endured. ^ On one
he reads his father's hunger, on another his abject toil.
He remembers, as one portion of the store is brought out,
that it was gained at the expense of calumny and hatred
from friends ; and when another is produced, that it was
earned by theloss of those most dear to him. At every
instalment he looks into his dear pai*ent's countenance.

1851.] Tlie Aciions of the New Testament. 435

and sees its manly sorrow, and its varying emotions, as
these same recollections pass over his heart ; and though
the smile of love is on his lips, as the last golden drachma
falls from his hand, at thought of what he has achieved for
his children, even this is but more heart-rending to the
tender one of the two, and he almost loses all sense of
his own liberation, in the anguish inflicted by its price.
He thinks not of himself, for love is not selfish. He goes
not away, singing, *' I am ransomed, I am free,*' but he
rushes to his father's feet, exclaiming, " Thou hast pur-
chased me, I am thine V^

Such we believe to be the true difference between the
Protestant and the Catholic modes of looking at our
Saviour's passion. The one looks at it with an acquisitive
eye, the other with the eye of love. To the Protestant it
would have been the same if the simple act of death had
been recorded, and its preliminary and accompanying suf-
ferings had been suppressed. Not one emotion would have
been lost to him, any more than, in his system, any advan-
tage. What does the cruel agony in Gethsemani give
him ? It does not redeem him. What does he gain by
the welts and^ gashes of the Roman scourges ? They do
not ransom him. What profits him the mock coronation,
and its insulting homage? It does not save him. And
then what can Mary and John do for him at the cross's
foot ? He declares he does not care for them. What mat-
ters it to him if the seamless garment be diced for, or rent?
It bears no deep mystery of faith to him. No ; only let
him secure that moment when the last breath passes over
the Yictim'slips, and it is enough — for it is the atonementi

Yet all that we have briefly enumerated was suffered for
our sakes, and recorded for our profit. Although the last
piece completed our ransom, all that preceded it composed
the sum. For surely our divine Redeemer did nought in
V5iin, nor aught supei-fluously. He was generous, indeed,
but not wasteful. The Catholic, therefore, treasures up in
his heart every smallest gift of love, where the smallest is
immense. From this minuteness of Catholic preception
springs a sense of reality, an approximation of feeling,
which makes that not merely vivid, but present, which is
separated from us by ages. On the other side is a mere
hazy and vague generality, merging in a conception of the
mind, instead of a real fact. And from this unreality
easily springs up a lurking infidelity, that saps the founda-

436 The Actions of the New Testament. [Dec*

lion of Christianity. The miud comes to think it unneces-
sary to trouble itself about details, so long as the one
apprehended truth is certain. " Christ died for us, no
matter how/' is the whole needful dogma of an evangeli-
cal mind.

But there is another view from which the Protestant eye
habitually shrinks, but one which the Catholic boldly con-
templates ; it is that which completes the circle^ by joining
the beginning and the end of the Gospel together, steadily
uniting the incarnation and the death. The first of these
great mysteries receives but little prominence in modem
Frotestantism, because it lacks the daring of faith, to
believe that He who died was the Word incarnate. And
it is this feebleness of belief that leads to that vagueness
and generalization in doctrine, which we have described.
Say to a Protestant, ^' God was struck in the face ; God
was scourged; God was crowned with thorns," and he
dares not trust himself to look upon the doctrine. The
eagle eye that can gaze upon the sun belongs not to his
system ; it is but a craven bird. He feels himself unable
to grasp the awful mystery. If he deny the divinity of our
Lord, his atonement is gone. But he dares not contem-
plate the dogma through its various applications, and he
shrinks from such phrases as we have given with a mis-
giving terror.^ They sound shocking and almost profitne.
And thus he is driven to suppress in his thoughts those
detailed sequels of the incarnation, and dwell upon only
obscure perceptions of two doctrines, which he has not
heart to firmly combine. Socinianism thus becomes the
refuse of a vacillating attempt at faith. *

The Catholic Church is a stranger to this wavering
She pursues one doctrine through all the mazes of the
other, and combines the two inextricably. ^ The Infant and
the victim are equal realities, nay, a unit:^, beginning in
God, and in God ending ; God throughout^ in feebleness as
in might, in obscurity and in brightness, in sufiering and
in glory. Nothing in Him is little, nothing unworthy;
the fool's garment on Him is as sacred as the snow-brignt
vesture of Thabor ; the scourge of cords in His uplifted
hand is as powerful as the thunderbolt ; the first lisping of
His infant tongue a^ wisdomful as His sermon on the
mount, a bruise upon His flesh as beautiful to angels'
eyes, as adorable to man's soul, as His first smiling
radiance shed upon his virgin mother. Thus does the

1851 .] SliephercCs Early History of the Papacy. 437

Church believe^ thus realise her faith. She alone under*
stands the true doctrine of her Saviour's deaths as He
Himself expounded it ; for none other has learnt this les-
son from His actions, that love is an essential condition
of forgiveness as well as faith^ and love it is that will
linger over every detail of love.

Abt. IV.— TAd History of (he Church of Rome, to the end of the Episoo'
paU of Damasus, A.D. 384. By Edward John Shepherd, A.M.,
Rector of Luddesdown. Svo. London: Longmans, 1851.

*' TPiO you think/' said Pere Hardouin, to a friend who
j^ remonstrated with him on some of those historical
paradoxes^ which have made his name so notorious ; *^ do
you think that I have been rising all my life at four o'clock
in the morning, merely to say what every one has been
saying before me ?'* It would be too much to expect the
same significant avowal from eveiy imitator of Pere Har-
douin ; but there can be no doubt that the love of new and
startling views is one of the most dangerous temptations
which beset the path of the antiquarian ; and that for each
fresh investigator the danger increases in the exact propor-
tion of the industry and research which have been bestowed
upon the subject by his predecessors in the career of inves-
tigation.

And certainly, if the mantle of the learned but eccentric
Jesuit still remains on earth, we cannot help suspecting
that, by some strange caprice of fortune, it has fallen upon
the shoulders of the Rector of Luddesdown. The imputa-
tion of such an affinity, we fear, will be distasteful to the
religious prejudices which his book betrays ; but it is im-
possible to read even a single section, without recognizing
It as an emanation of the same paradoxical school. The
scepticism which Pere Hardouin carried into the study of
classical antiquity, Mr. Shepherd has indulged, with even
more reckless audacity^ in the investigation of the histori-

438 /Shepherd's Early Hhtory of the Papacy. [Dec.

cal records of primitive Christianity. There is no opinion
too firmly established, or too universally received, to be
proof against his daring criticism : no^ fact is too clearly
demonstrated to withstand his suspicious scrutiny: the
Christian history is, in his view, but a vast field of doubt
and uncertainty ; and his only rule of criticism appears to
be, to question, or rather to deny, the genuineness, or, at
least, the authority, of everything which, before his time,
had passed under the denomination of authentic histoiy,
and, in his own phrase, "had floated down its broad
stream, if not unsuspected, yet, as far as he knew,
unchallenged." (Preface.) Pere Hardouin held that,
except the works of Cicero, and a few of those of Pliny,
Horace, and Virgil, all the so-called '^ classics," are
forgeries of the monks of the middle ages. The -^neid of
Virgil he believed to be a religious allegory of the thirteenth
century. He looked upon the Odes of Horace as an
emanation of the same school, and held the Lalage of that
witty poet to be but a mystical impersonation of the Chris-
tian religion. Mr. Shepherd applies just as reckless a
hand to the entire fabric of early patristic literature. There
is scarcely a record of the first ages which he does not pro-
nounce to be either wholly spurious, or, at least, interpo-
lated ; many of them he even represents as the fruits of an
extensive and systematic scheme of forgery, and as com-
posed or modified for the purpose of supporting each other ;
and he applies this undiscriminating scepticism not alone
to the genuineness of the writings of the period, but to the
reality of the characters and the truth of the events of its
reputed history. Thus he " has his doubts" about the visit
of St. Polycarp to Rome, in the time of Anicetus (p. 12); he
"doubts" the letter of Dionysius of Corinth to Soter,
(p. 17.) and the letter of Dionysius of Alexandria, preserved
by Eusebius (p. 29) ; he ^* entertains a suspicion of the
truth' ' of the reference of the Donatist controversy to Con-
stantino (p. 38); he thinks that the statement of Pope
Sylvester's sending legates to Aries and to Nice, " may be
doubted" (p. 50) ; he " is not clear"^ as to the exile of
Liberius (p. 90) ; nor as to his recall (ibid) ; he " questions
whether any of the documents connected with it are genu-
ine" (p. 99) ; he holds " that the very^ existence^ of the
council of Alexandria, [on the accession of Julian,] is
doubtful" (p. 103} ; and declares that " there is scarcely an
event in the pontificate of Damasus, on which any reliance

1851.] Shepherd's Early History of the Papacy. 439

can be placed'* (p. 106) ! In truth, if there ever has been,
since the days of the renowned Governor of New Amster-
dam, surnamed *' THE doubter/* an individual who may
legitimately succeed to the honours of the title, Mr.
Shepherd may fairly claim to be the man !

There is one very important difference, however, between
the system of doubting adopted by Mr. Shepherd, and
that of his illustrious predecessor. It is recorded of
" Walter the Doubter,*' that he could never '* make up his
mind on any doubtful point.** Now Mr. Shepherd appears to
doubt solely for the purpose of deciding the point on which
his doubt is expressed ; and his decisions never fail to run
all in the same direction; that is to say, against the
authenticity of any work, or the truthfulness^ of any. state-
ment, which he may happen to have called into question.
Thus he declares Eusebius*s history of Polycarp*s visit to
Rome to be, *'as a whole, incredible.** (p. 210.) He
holds the history of the controversy of Pope Victor with
the Asiatics, and the Pope*s threatened excommunication of
the latter, to be a pure fabrication, (p. 27.) The similar
excommunication issued by Pope Stephen, and, indeed,
the whole controversy in which it originated, he holds to
be ** equally fabulous.*' (p. 28.) He rejects, as spurious,
the whole series of the " so-called Cyprianic Letters, and
thinks it " extremely doubtful whether there ever was such
a person as Cyprian at all.*' (p. 185.) He rejects with con-
tempt the alleged charge of heterodoxy made to Pope
Dionysius of Rome, agamst his namesake, the patriarch of
Alexandria, (p. 32.) He considers, in like manner,
the Spanish appeals to Rome; the reference of the
case of Marcian of Aries to Pope Cornelius; the Donatist
trial at Rome ; the Council of Aries ; the Council of
Laodicea ; and above all, that of Sardica, to be mere " Ro-
man fabrications.** In the same spirit, and with the same
view, he disbelieves the entire history of the flight of Athana-
sius to Rome ; the letter of the Eusebian party to Pope
Julius ; Julius's reply to them, and his authoritative decision
in the merits of the case of Athanasius ; the similar appeal
of Marcellus of Ancyra, and his restoration to his see by the
judgment of Rome; and, in a word, all the hitherto receiv-
ed details of the history of the life and times of Athana-
sius, and of the later Arian controversy.

But there is one opinion, which, more than all the rest of
Mr. Shepherd's book taken together, may illustrate the

440 Shepherd's Early History of the Papacy. [Dec.

wholesale scepticism that pervades it. With all his anti-
Roman tendencies, he abandons, without a struggle, what
have been the traditionary strongholds of the enemies of
Roman supremacy, whenever the maintenance of their
genuineness would clash with the sceptical theory which it is
the main object of his work to uphold. We have already
seen him sacrifice, without a sigh, the angry and intem-
perate invectives of Firmilian and Cyprian. He relin-
quishes, with equal indifference, the fierce and arrogant
rejoinder made to Pope Julius by the Arian antagonists of
Athanasius (225) ; and, most wonderful of all, he discards,
as an idle tale, the long-cherished history of the fall of
Pope Liberius, and rejects as spurious, every single histo-
rical document upon which it is ordinarily believed to rest !
These histories he holds, like all the rest, to have been
fabricated for the purpose of sustaining and extending the
ambitious pretensions of Rome ; and lest it should appear
strange that a clever fabricator should have gone to the
trouble to invent records so ill-calculated to forward his
views for the aggrandisement of Rome, as those which
represent the £k)man bishop as insulted, despised, set
at defiance, weakly betraying the cause of truth, and laps-
ing into a hideous heresy, he coolly avers that all this but
shows the craft and ingenuity of the fabricator, who threw
in all these seemingly unpalatable adjuncts in order ** to
render the forgery less suspicious !'* (p. 144.)

What we have said may suffice to supply some idea of
the lengths to which, as regards the facts of history, this
strange writer has carried his wild and reckless scepticism.
Considered, therefore, as a historical coniposition, or tested
according to any recognised principles oi historical autho-
rity, we need hardly say that his work is almost beyond the
pale of sober or serious criticism. But we cannot help,
nevertheless, regarding it as one of the most remarkable,
though unconscious, tributes to the self-evidence of the
claims of Rome, which has ever been laid at her feet by a
reluctant enemy. We shall make no apology, therefore,
for dwelling at some length upon its general argument.
For the simple truth is, that, m order to bear out the
antir-Roman position which he assunies, Mr. Shepherd
is compelled to discard almost everything in the shape of
history which has come down to us from those times !
Not content with this wholesale scepticism regarding
the writings of the first three centuries, of which we have

1851.] ^heplierdCs Early History of the Papacy. 441

already submitted a few passing specimens, he unhesitatingly
rejects the authority of the professed historians of the fourth
century, whenever they clash with his preconceived theory.
Eusebius's history, he holds, is corrupted throughout f' his
Life of Constantine is the work of a nameless fabricator
(p. 39) ; Socrates and Sozomen are utterly beneath the
consideration of any enlightened reader (p. 69) ; Theodo-
ret's name is assumed by a Roman forger, as his evidence
in favour of Roman supremacy might be expected to carry
immediate conviction, (p. 69 ;) the Historical Tracts of
Athanasius (223) ; the Chronicle of Eusebius ; St. Jerome
I?e Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis ; Lactantius JDe Morti-
bus Persecutorum ; St. Basil I)e Spiritu Sancto ; the
Historical Fragments of St. Hilary, St. Basil^s Letters,
St. Gregory Nazianzen's Autobiographical Poem, and,
indeed, everything which can be called the histoiy, or
materials illustrating the history, of the fourth century, is
set down as having originated in the same monster manu-
factory of falsehood, or, at least, as having been, to use a
vulgar but expressive phrase, unscrupulously doctored
under its influence and direction ! It is difficult to know
how to deal with such a writer ; and it requires no little
eflfort to avoid regarding the entire book in the light of a
good-humoured satire upon the art of historical criticism,
perhaps designed to work its cure by demonstrating its
absurdity.

And yet, if we may believe the profession of the preface,
Mr. Shepherd has, in this first publication, but expressed a
portion of the historical doubts which he privately enter-
tains ! He " has not thought it expedient to state every
suspicion that has arisen in his mind'' (p. viii.) ; he has
been '^ desirous to preserve as much as he could, of the
small remains of history which we possess," aad has,
therefore, felt himself justified *^ even in cases where he
entertained doubts, to speak at times without imputation
of doubt, respecting some things which pass unquestioned in
history.'' (p. ix.) If this be indeed so, we tremble for the
result of any further revision of the history of the period
which Mr. Shepherd may chance to undertake. And we
cannot help recommending our readers to make the most

♦ See pp. IGO, 180, 186, 198, 215, 222, 253, &o., &c.

VOL. XXXL-No, LXII. 9

442 Sheplierd's Early History of ilie Papacy. [Dec.

of the small remnant of the history of those times which
he has been good enough to spare them for a little
longer. If, during the interval between this and his second
edition, his views enlarge in the same ratio, we can hardly
hope that we shall be permitted to retain our belief in the
fact of the establishment of Christianity under Constan-
tino, or even in the existence of the great council of Nice
itself!

It is difficult, indeed, to avoid suspecting that the very
novelty and startling character of these views, have had a
secret attraction for this eccentric writer. He is evidently
not insensible to the glory of being, or fancying himself to
be, the first to call in question what has passed " unchal-
lenged*' through the scrutiny of all former critics. And yet
we fear that, from the specimens of his capacity here exni-
bited, the learned reader will hardly be disposed to recognize
his claim to sit in judgment, and to pronounce definitively,
upon the labours of all the mighty men whose verdict he
would thus unceremoniously set aside. It is sufficiently
plain, from his preface, that his studies of antiquity are of
a very recent date. He has not even the poor excuse for
eccentricity alleged by Pere Hardouin, of having ** risen
all his life at four o'clock in the morning;'' and it may be
fairly questioned whether Tillemont, Mabillon, Constant,
Ceillier, Baluzzi, and their fellow-labourers, are to be
quietly set aside by a writer who, according to his own
showing, has not devoted to the enquiry as many months
as they had given years.

We are sorry to add, that Mr. Shepherd's book illus-
trates but too plainly the common belief, that dogma-
tism and presumption are generally allied with incompe-
tency. Mr. Shepherd has undertaken to pronounce defi-
nitively upon almost all the great questions in the critical
history of the primitive Church, without knowing one
word of what the great masters of the subject have written
or decided, and in very many cases seemingly even without
knowing that the question on which he presumes to decide
had ever been opened for doubt, or at least for discussion.
It would be tedious to enumerate the examples of this
strange union of ignorance and assumption with which his
book is charged ; but there is one which may place the
matter beyond all doubt. We have already alluded to his
speculations as to the spuriousness of the letters of St.
Cyprian and Fiiinilian in the controversy upon the bap-

1851.] ShepkercPs Early History of the Papacy. 443

tism of heretics. In all that he has written upon this
subject, he proceeds upon the supposition that these
writings had hitherto *' floated down the stream of history
• unsupported, or, at least as far as he knew, unchallenged."
(pref. V.) Now certainly this is a degree of ignorance
which we could hardly have conceived in any one pre-
suming to write upon the subject at all, much less in one
who undertakes to decide it with the authority of a master.
It is plain that Mr. Shepherd's scanty reading must have
lain among the minor Protestant controversialists, who, as
a matter of course, clung too fondly to Firmilian's abuse of
the Koman bishop, to entertain, or, at least, to repeat,
the doubts expressed as to the authenticity of the letter.
If he had looked into almost any Catholic authority upon
the question, he would have found that the authenticity of
these letters had long been "suspected;" and if he had
only refen'ed to any of those by whom the question has been
expressly treated, he would find that the genuineness of the
letters had been directly challenged, not alone, as he had
casually learned, by "one Raymund Missorius," but by
many others, even as far back as the time of the celebrated
Christian Lupus."' Besides the learned Franciscan, whom
he thus vaguely names, another member of the same order.
Father Marcellinus Molkenbuhr, published two lengthened
and elaborate dissertations on the subject.! Another essay
to the same effect was pubhshed by the Jesuit Father Tour-
nemine.l Morcelli, in the Africa Christiana,^ maintains
the same view ; as also the more modem historian, Alber,
both in his Ecclesiastical History,|| and moreover in a

* See his Dissertation on Tertullian, De Prescripiione,
t Munster, in 1790 and 1793. The first is printed by Lumper in
his IlUtoria Theolog. Critica, voL xii. p. 79G and seq.

\ See the Memoires de Trevoux, 1734. § Vol. ii. p. 138.

II Vol. i. 211, and following pages.
It is an interesting evidence as well of the candour of Catholic
historians and critics, as of their confidence in the truth of their
cause, that although these letters of Cjprian and Firmilian have
been for centuries the stronghold of the anti-papal theory, the
opinion of their spuriousuess has been received with little favour
among them. On the contrary, its most strenuous opponents have
been Catholics, as Sbaralea, Cotta, Lumper, Palma, and many
others. These too, have, as may be supposed, escaped the notice
of Mr, Shepherd.

r 'f

444 Shcpherd^s Early History of the Papacy, [Dec»

special Dissertation. That Mr. Shepherd should not

have examined the arguments of these writers, and the

answers of those who have defended the authenticity of

the letters against them, will doubtless appear stranc:e '

enough, even to the unlearned reader ; but that he should

not even be aware of the fact that thei/ had written on the

subject at all, or that ani/ doubt had ever been suggested

by any writer, until some unnamed correspondent vaguely

** informed him of a note of Mr. Poole, in his * Cyprian

and his Times,* in which he mentions a Raymund

Missorius, who attributed the letters to the Donatists** is,

we submit, a degree of ignorance utterly inconceivable in

one who holds himself privileged to lay down the law with all

but infcillible authority, not alone on this, bat on every

other conceivable point in the critical history of early pa-

trology ! The very " Manuals'* of Church History would

have supplied him with at least so much information. One

of the most compendious of the entire, that of Gieseler,

enumerates, in a brief note, almost all the writers to whom

we have referred above !

We should not have space to particularize the other
examples of Mr. Shepherd's haste and inaccuracy which
we have observed in tuniing over his pages. We might over-
look, for instance, the silly conjectures which he mdulges
as the semi-arian heresy (p. 73) ; the absurdities into which
his love of paradox betrays him about Pope Liberius
(90-1); his confounding Felix the anti-Pope elected in
opposition to Liberius, with Felix the martyr (94) ; and
many similar blunders. But some of his mistakes are of
such a character as almost to appear incredible in one
who has any pretensions to the reputation of an ecclesi-
astical scholar. Will it be believed, for instance, that
after the lengthened and well-known discussions which
have taken place on the subject of the Paschal con-
troversy, after the learned and conclusive labours of
Ussher, Prideaux, Smith, Bingham, and so many others,
a scholar can at this day be found so ignorant of all that
has passed upon the question, as still to think that the
British Churches agreed in practice with the Asiatic
Qiiarto-decimans, and to found thereon an argument for
the oriental origin of British Christianity ? Mr. Shep-
herd puts this repeatedly forward with all tlie complacency
of ignorance (pp. 18, 66, &c.,) as though no one had ever
doubted the statement ! Yet this is the writer who under-

1851.] Shepherd's Early History of the Papacy. 445

takes to remodel the whole scheme of primitive Christian
history !

Indeed the origin and tendency of all Mr. Shepherd's
critical speculations are sufficiently apparent from the
brief words of preface by which his book is introduced.
A few years ago, he informs us, thinking that there were suf-
ficient materials to give a far more intimate knowledge of
the Roman Church than the general reader then possess-
ed, it occurred to him to endeavour to collect and arrange
them. He had no object in view, he declares, beyond *^ a
desire to represent the truth." What this truth was,
however y he had already made up his mind. " Feeling
assured, on other grounds," he writes, *^ that Roman
pretensions could have no sound foundation, ho thought
that a true and simple statement of historical facts
would show their fallacious origin,'^ He commenced his
enquiry, therefore, according to his own avowal, with this
foregone conclusion. He had " viewed the controversy /^
he admits, " through a Protestant glass of the vresent
<i<^!//' (P- 5.) and with this view firmly fixed bewre his
eyes, he set about the investigation of the historical ques-
tion ; satisfied that no other could be disclosed by genuine
history, and, in good truth, resolved to find this and no
other, in the records of the primitive times.

Unluckily for the framers of foregone conclusions, it
sometimes happens that the premises fail to substantiate
what they themselves are predetermined to deduce. Mr.
Shepherd, satisfied " upon other grounds" that the Roman
claim of supremacy '* could have no sound foundation,"
never dreamed that it could be possible that " history
should not support Scripture and common sense in reject-
ing them." What must have been Mr. Shepherd's amaze-
ment at the first result of his patristic researches ! Taking
the records of the early Church, such as they have been hi-
therto received, he is not long in discovering expressions on
the subject of Roman rights which he cannot help suspecting
will, *' in spite of all the twistings of commentators, be
more fashionable at Rome than at Canterbury" (p. 139.) He
finds, for instance, a distinct acknowledgment that *^ there
was an authority invested in Pope Cornelius to enter upon
the questiouwhether Cyprian was true bishop of Carthage"
(p. 141). He finds that ** nothing of importance passed
in Africa but it was immediately notified to Rome ; that
synodal decrees passed there were all sent for approval ;.

446 SfiepJterd^s Early History of the Papacy. Dec.

that their (African) sentences of excommunication were
immediately forwarded to Rome; that appeals were fre-
quently made from African decisions, and more or less
listened to ; and that if not listened to, it was from no
want of authority in the Roman Prelate, but from his own
judgment and information that they were rejected."
(p, 145). He sees the Roman Prelate connected with
Peter, sitting on the same chair with him, and deriving
his authority through him'' (Ibid.)^ And he is " surprised
by some mysterious expressions, importing that, at that
early period, the notion was maintained, that there was
properly only one bishop of the Catholic Church, and that
the Bishop of Rome was that one" (p. 145.) He finds
the same appeals and the same interference in Spain
(p. 147.) He discovers a still more signal illustration of
the Papal power in Gaul (p. 148-9) ; and another, reported
from various quarters, in Asia Minor" (p. 150). At another
point he discovers " the same active intercourse and pro-
ceedings taking place between Rome and Alexandria, as
are gomg on between Rome and Carthage (p. 150) ; he
finds the prelate of that great see " consulting the Roman
Prelate, and communicating information ;" in short, he
sees that " Alexandria is another Carthage, another oflP-
shoot of Rome !" (p. 151.)

But -to cap the climax of his amazement, he meets a
letter which goes far beyond all the previous claims. The
writer of this letter is the Bishop of Rome; the parties
to whom it is addressed are " the primate of Cappadocia,
the primate of the cast, the bishop of Constantinople, and
other oriental prelates ;" and the purport of the letter was
to complain that they had not obeyed the writer's summons,
and met at Rome to confront the primate of Alexandria,
who had some charge to make against them ! (p. 247.)
" What a magnificent conception ! ' exclaims Mr. Shep-
herd, in the fulness of his wonder, " worthy of Rome's
palmiest days — the bishops of Egypt, Antioch. and Con-
stantinople, pleading in person before the bishop of Rome
on his own judgment seat ! It had not been realized, not
even in the plenitude of their power, by a Gregory or an
Innocent, and yet in Rome's very cradle it had almost
come to pass !'' (p. 247.)

These, no doubt, were rather startling discoveries for
one who had come to the enquiry, " satisfied that Roman
pretensions could have no sound foundation:" discoveries

1851, 1 Shepherd^ 8 Early History of the Papacy. 447

rather calculated to cast a shade upon that *^ Protestant
glass/* through which he had hitherto been '' viewing the
controversy!'*

It is worth while to take in detail his sketch of the
several cases, or at least, of the most important of them.
He devotes a large space to the well-known case of St. Cypri-
an and the African church. The following is the result
of his study of the letters of Cyprian and his correspon-
dents in the course of that celebrated controversy with
which his name is connected in history,

" If we grant to the Cjprianic letters the dates which have been
hitherto assigned to them, we may say that the fifty-fifth contains
the first mention of the chair of Peter as applied to Rome. There
is no attribution in any Ante-Nicene writings which I have seen of
any chair to any Apostle, except in these writings of Cyprian, in
which the Roman chair is assigned to Peter.

" The fifty-seventh is a synodal letter from Africa to Cornelius,
telling him of a council which they had held, and the decree which
they had made, and which they hope he will approve.

*• The fifty- ninth is an important letter. A rival bishop of Car-
thage is introduced (nay there are two) ; but one is introduced as
sending his legate to Cornelius. The legate is said to have been a
man of most atrocious cliaracter, as most of Cyprian's opponents
are, and to have been excommunicated by a council at Carthage.
The pseudo-bishop had been consecrated by a party of African
bishops, all of whom^ either for crimes or heresy, had been excom-
municated at Carthage, and one of them also at Rome. The new
bishop, therefore, does not seem to have begun his career iUnder
good auspices. The first thing, however, that he does, and rather
a bold one it would seem, but still it only the more shows its neces-
sity, is to send his legate to Gomeliiis to announce his election.
At first the legato is said to have been repelled, and Cornelius
writes to tell Cyprian so ; but by a second letter, which arrived
also by the same messenger, an acolyte (these letters contain the
first announcement of this officer, and he would appear to be no
noveltj), it would seem that Cornelius had by strong menaces and
threats been afterwards induced, if not to receive his letter, yet to
do something which was in some measure an acknowledgment of
the new bishop. Cyprian in this letter replies, but instead of say-
ing, what right have you to interfere in an African quarrel, or to
receive any letters from Carthage except from me, he expresses
great distress at Cornelius's conduct, and enters upon a proof that
he is the true bishop of Carthage, vindicating his conduct from
some charges which are represented as having been made against
him, and in return traducing his opponents, whose character should
have prevented Cornelius from attending to their statements ; all

448 ShepfieriTs Early History of the Papacy^ [Dec.

which implies that there was an authority vested in ComeUus to
enter upon the question^ whether Cyprian was trae bishop of Car-
thage, only in this case the infamy of his opponents was bo well
known, while Cyprian's position was so fully acknowledged, that
Cornelius was not justified in paying the least attention to the com.-
plaint. Such appears to me to be the meaning of this letter.

• * We may infer from it, too, tliat every act of the African
Church was notified to Rome. We are told, moreover, that
Cyprian had sent the names of all the orthodox bishops to Corne-
lius, that he might know to whom to write, and in a previous letter
we hear of an African prelate writing to Cornelius.'' (pp. 139-141.)

He passes on to the letters which date within the ponti-
ficate of Stephen.

" The second series of the Cyprianic letters is supposed to have
sprung from a controversy in the days of Stephen, bishop of Rome,
on the question whether heretics, on coming over to the Church,
should be baptized. Cyprian is represented as maintaining the
affirmative, and Stephen the negative.

" There is first a report of a letter which turns out to have been
written by Stephen ; also of a letter from Stephen to Cyprian ; but
neither are seen ; only a sentence or two is bestowed upon us.
This interference of Stephen is represented as having caused mucli
tumult in Africa. Many Synods were held, and one synodal letter
is sent to Stephen, containing two decrees which they had made.
Those are, in reality, the forty-fifth and forty-sixth of the Apostoli-
cal Canons, Although Cyprian maintains his right of private
judgment in his diocese, still there are angry insinuaiions about a
bishop^of bishops, and expressions like the following are now and
then seen.

*' ' Reason, and not custom, should prevail Peter [in whose
chair Stephen was sitting], whom the Lord chose first, and on
whom he built his Church, when Paul was disputing with him
afterwards on circumcision, did not claim more than he ought, or
arrogantly take upon himself to say that he was the primate, and
that he ought to be obeyed by more recent apostles ; nor did he
despise Paul because he had been previously a persecutor, but he
yielded to truth and reason, setting us an example.'*

" But the important letter of this controversy is one from Firmi-
lian, bishop of Csesaroa, in Cappadocia, a man second to none of
his day. It is represented that he is of the same opinion with
Cyprian on this subject, and that Cyprian had sent a deacon to
him, all the way from Carthage, with a letter ; and this, the seven-
ty-fifth in the Cyprianic series, is his reply. It reads exactly as if
it was one of Cyprian's, but the writer, I suppose, intends to

* Epist. 71.

18S1.] Shepherd's Early History of the Papacy. 449

aeoount for that by eajing, that he had read over Cjprian's letter
so often that ho had got it by heart, and that there was no harm
in saying the same thing twice over. Moreover, as Cyprian's
deacon was in such haste to return home, owing to the approach of
winter (after a journey from Africa to Cappadocia, the rest of a
day or two might have been thought not unreasonable), he really
could only say what first came into his head. But he adds some
facts very much, indeed, to the purpose, namely, that Stephen had
boasted of the place of his bishopric, of his succession from Peter,
on whom the Church was built, and that Stephen had excommvni'
cated him and crowds of Churches about him. And although he is
as distinguished a professor as Cyprian of the art of abuse, and
does not spare Stephen, yet it appears from this letter, that Stephen
had sat on Peter's chair, and had excommunicated him/' (pp. 142-4.)

The letter alluded to iu this passage is the celebrated
letter of Firmilian, ' on the tone and language of which
Protestant controversialists have relied from time imme-
morial, as evidence that the position of the Bishop of Rome
in the early church could not possibly have been what it
is represented b.y the Roman writers to have actually
been. Nevertheless, even in this letter, so long the great
bulwark of anti-Papal principles, Mr. Shepherd is driven to
recognise a confirmation of these obnoxious claims. We
shall ^ee, hereafter, that he gets rid of the diflficulty in a
very summary way, by declaring the whole letter a crafty
forgery of the latin Pontiffs. It may appear strange, to
be sure, that if they went to the trouble of forging at all,
they should have managed so clumsily as to furnish what
is certainly one of the most plausible argunients against
the very claims which the fabrication was designed to sup-
port. But Mr. Shepherd coolly dismisses the objection by
assuming, that *^ the abuse was thrown in to make the
letter look less suspicious.** (p. 144.)

We must pass on, however, to the case of the Spa-
nish church.

" It appears from this letter, that two Spanish bishops had been
tried and deposed by Spanish synods for very atrocious crimes, and
that two successors had been canonically elected into their places ;
that certainly one of the deposed prelates (most probably both) had
appealed to Stephen, that he had sent them back with letters
ordering their restoration, and that they had returned to Spain,
and, ousting the new bishops, had resumed their episcopal func-
tions.

**It appears, also, that the Spanish Church was thrown into

450 Shepfierd's Early History of ilie Papacy. [Dec*

great confusion bj this interference, and had written to the African
Church to know what thej should do, and had sent their letter
apparently bj the new bishops. Cjprian writes a sjnodal replj, in
which he sajs that thej had done very right, that Stephen, through
ignorance of the facts, had done very wrong, and that thej most
resist the invasion, and there the information stops.

'* But quite enough is learnt. It is seen that the Spanish
bishops went all the waj from Spain (one from Merida, and the
other from Leon and Astorga, opposite extremities) to the Roman
prelate, complaining of the Spanish sjnodal decision ; that he OTor-
ruled it without even a new trial, or hearing the Spanish Church ;
that the deposed bishops, on the strength of bis letter, had turned
put their successors, and resumed their duties, and that the Spanish
Church knew not how to act.

« Stephen is blamed, but no doubt is uttered as to his right io
interfere. There would have been no blame if its exercise had
been justified by circumstances." (pp. 146-7.)

The case of Gaul is still more important.

** Marcian, bishop of Aries, had adopted Novatiau*s tenets. This
had given offence to Faustinas, bishop of Lyons, and his suffragans ;
and thej had sent a sjnodal letter to Stephen, giving him the
information, and apparentlj desiring that he would procure his de-
position. For some cause not stated, Stephen is said to have takea
no notice of it. Tiiej, therefore, wrote once and again to Cjprian,
sajing that thej had told Stephen, but he had paid no attention to
their letter, and, I suppose, urging Cjprian also to write to him.
The letter of Cjprian to Stephen is preserved, in which, having
told him that it is the dutj of all bishops to interfere, he urges him
to send a verj plain and peremptorj letter to the province and
people of Aries, as well excommunicating Marcian, as ordering
them to appoint a successor, and then begs him to let him know
who is appointed.

Whether Stephen did write is not said. But Stephen (we are to
understand) was applied to for such a letter bj both Faustinus and
Cjprian, and, therefore, obviouslj considered bj them as having a
special right to exercise that sort af interference »^ (pp. I4&-9.)

We must observe in passing, that Mr. Shepherd has not
done full justice to* the letter of Cyprian. He represents
Cyprian as simply calling on Cornelius to *' excommunicate
Marcian, and order <A^m, (the people of Aries,) to appoint
another.'' What Cyprian really calls on Cornelius to do, is
to appont a substitute himself by his own letter j and
therefore by his own authority ; *' quibus (Uteris), abstento

18S1.] SfiephercTs Early History of the Papacy. 461

MarciariOy alius in locimi ^us mbstituatur/*^"^ This is the
full mediaeval claim of the !rapacy.

All these examples, however, lie within the limits of the
Western Church. And it must have jarred still more on
Mr. Shepherd's preconceived notions, to have found such a
case as the following, which is not only beyond the ordin-
ary jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, but even concerns
the jurisdiction of another patriarch, and in fact implies
the subjection of that patriarch to the Roman Bishop.

** Athanasius states that some bishops residing in the Pentapolis
had, in the days of Dionysius, so imbibed the tenets of Sabellius,
that the Son of God was scarcely preached in the Churches.
IfV^ben this had come to the ears of Dionjsius, he sent and exhorted
the heretics to relinquish their heresies. This they refused to do.
Ho then felt it his duty to write a book against them. It might
have been thought that, as archbishop of the province, he had a
readier and more conclusiye modo of stopping the further propagation
of such teaching. However, in the work which he composed, in order
to refute their Sabellian notions, he pointed out the humanity
of the Saviour, and showed that it was not the Father, but the Son,
who had become incarnate for our salvation. This letter, when
read by some of the Pen tapoli tans, seemed to them to savour of
heresy ; and not only to distinguish the Persons, but the substance
also, of the Father and the Son. And * without,' Athanasius sajs;
' going to Dionj^ius to ask him to explain his meaning, they set off
immediately to Rome to the other Dionysius, and laid an accusa-
tion against his Alexandrian namesake.' Dionysius of Rome sum-
moned a council, and laid the matter before it. The council was
highly indignant, and the Roman prelate wrote to his Alexandrian
namesake to inform him of the accusation made against him, and
of the synod's opinion. He also published a work against not only
his tenets, but those of Sabellius also. When this letter reached
the Alexandrian Dionysius, he was greatly shocked, and immedi*
ately wrote an apologetic letter to his Roman namesake.

'* This is the story, and it is easy to see the object of it. It was
intended to show that persons living within the diocese of Alex-
aridria, suspecting their bishop's orthodoxy^ went instantly to Bome^
and laid an accusation against him; and that the Alexandrian
prelate had to exculpate himself to the Boman prelate. We have
already seen attempts to assert this superiority with reference
to Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Asia Minor. The Alexandrian prelate
IS now brought within the same circle. Hitherto he has been
introduced as asking advice and communicating information. Now
he is a criminal." (pp. 190-1.)

* See the passage in the Library of the Fathers. HI. P. ii. 217.

452 ShepherdCs Early Hkiory of the Papacy. [Dec.

Equally decisive, in his eyes, is the received account of
the proceedings of Pope Victor in the Paschal contro-
versy. It rests upon the authority of Eusebius in his
Ecclesiastical History. Mr. Shepherd condenses the
account given by Eusebius, as follows :—

"The Christians of all Asia, as it is termed by him, broke
their paschal fast on the fourteenth day of the moon, whatever
day of the week it might be, while the rest of Christendom never
heeded the fourteenth day, but carried on their fast to the Sandaj.

" A controversy is said to have arisen on this difference of usagep
and synods to have been everywhere held to determine it^ and,
among other places, in Palestine, Bome, Pontus, Gaul, and O»roeiie.
Nothing, therefore, more universal can well be imagined. The
synodal letters of these councils are represented as being extant in
the days of Eusebius, besides some letters from individuals, and
they all decreed that on the Sunday, and on no other day in the
week, should the paschal fast terminate. It is then said, that all
these synods having made this decree, sent it everywhere. The
letter, however, which conveyed the Roman decree, and which was
written by Victor the bishop, and sent, it would seem, to Poly-
crates, bishop of Ephesus, conveyed much more than their opiuioo.
It was a word and a blow. In plain terms they were told to meet
together in council and change their doings ; if they did not do so,
and adopt the usages of the other Churches, they should all be
excommunicated.'' (pp. 198-9.)

After transcribing the letters of Polycrates and Irenaeus,
he proceeds with the following remarkable commentary : —

** If the reader reflects upon this account, it will strike him as
not the least extraordinary part of it, that neither Irenaeus nor
Polycrates express any doubt as to the power or cnUhority of the
Roman bishop to interfere abroad, Irensus respectfully remon-
strates ; Polycrates says, * who cares ;* but the illegality of any
such proceedings is never even hinted at. The prelate could issue
his mandate, only there might be then, as now, persons who would
disregard it. And yet it is so opposed to everything that can be
guessed at about the Church at that time, that it is, at the first
glance, incredible. It appears, however, in the 'Ecclesiastical
History' of Eusebius." (p. 202.)

It would carry us beyond the limits of our prescribed
space to enter into the detail of Mr. Shepherd's account of
the case of Athanasius, such as he finds it in the account
of the affair which the historians and other writers of the
fourth century have given. We can only condense the
leadmg points of it.

1851.[ Shepherd's Early Hktory of the Papacy 453

Soon after Athanasius's recall from exile upon the death
of Constantine, his old enemies began to intrigue anew
against him. One of their earliest steps was "to send
legates^ and accuse him to the three emperors, and to
Jmius, Bishop of Rome." (p. 238.) Athanasius, as soon
as he was apprised of this, sent legates to Rome upon his
own part ; and on their arrival, put the emissaries of the
Arian party so completely to shame that they fled from the
city in confiision. One of the objects which they had
sought to obtain, was that Julius should grant letters of
communion to Pistus, the new bishop who had been
elected by their party at Alexandria, in the room of Athan-
asius, whom they sought to depose ; and on this point also
the delegates of Athanasius addressed a remonstrance to
him,— a very significant evidence, that with regard to mal-
yersating bishops, the usage which we have seen in Gaul
in the case of Marcian, bishop of Aries, was equally recog-
nized, at least in extraordinary circumstances, by the great
Churches of the East also. But further, the legates of
the Arian party ** asked Julius to call a council, and
pledged themselves^ to attend it'/ (289); and** even when
they returned home a letter of similar import was sent to
Julius from the oriental prelates, not only requesting him
to call a council, but, if he liked, to he himself the judge. ^^
(289.)

Events, however, were meanwhile precipitated at Alex-
andria. Without waiting for the assembling of the council
which they had asked Julius to call, the Arian prelates met
at Antioch, deposed Athanasius, and elected Gregory of
Cappadocia in his place. Athanasius, compelled to yield to
their violence, ^^fled to Rome and laid his case before
the Churchy^' (289.) Julius now resolved to act vigor-
ously, and to ** summon the Orientals to meet and explain
the charges brought against them.*' Two Roman Pres-
byters were sent with the summons ; but the Arian party
anticipating the issue, declined to attend, on the ground of
the insufficiency of the notice, and of the political troubles of
the times, which made it impossible for them to leave their
sees. Mr. Shepherd, by the way, urges, as a suspicious
circumstance, this very shortness of the notice, inasmuch
as though Athanasius had not left Alexandria till Easter,
the council was called to meet at Rome before Christmas.
But it never occurs to him, that if the notice were really
so short as to present any seeming difficulty, this very im-

454 ShepIiercTs Early History of the Papacy, [Dec,

probability is the best evidence of the genuineness of the
history. No forger would have committed himself to so
palpable an improbability.

The letter in which the answer of the Orientals was con-
tained is not preserved. It was an insolent and sarcastic
rejoinder, denying the right of Western Councils to reverse
Oriental decisions. Julius waited nearly twelve months,
in the hope of their being induced to relent ; but at
length, '^ when Athanasius had been eighteen months at
Home, and no Orientals came, he summoned the council ;
they proceeded to take the Egyptian evidence for Athana-
sius ; it completely refuted the allegations of the Oriental
legates against him. He was therefore acquitted^ and
they gave him their communion,*' (240.)

At the desire of the Council, Julius- wrote a letter to the
Oriental Bishops, which is still preserved. We must allow
Mr. Shepherd to explain, in his own words, the purport of
this most important document. It is hardly an anticipation
of what we shall have to notice hereafter, to say, that he
regards the letter, and indeed whole history, as a fabrica-
tion; and it may be necessary to bear this in mind, in
order to understand some of the commentaries by which
the narrative is interrupted. The whole of the writer's
prepossessions against ''Roman pretensions,*' is observable
m almost every sentence, and of course adds materially to
the value of his evidence.

'' However absurd the idea may be of the Eastern primates going
to Rome to submit their condact to the examination of Julias, it is
most strenuously insisted upon in the letter, that he expected they
would have come. No doubt was to be entertained upon that
point. And although they had taken offence at his summons, and
amid the terms of respect with which they addressed him, had
allowed sarcastic expressions to appear, still it was their canonical
duty to have come at his bidding. Indeed, so little could he doubt
but they would come, that he had kept their letter a whole year by
him, mentioning its contents to no one, that the feelings of the
brethren at Rome might not be hurt at learning their disobedience.
This is exceedingly startling intelligence, and made still more so,
by our being informed that their necessary attendance was in accord*
ance with a canon of the Nicene Council. He says — < The bishops
assembled in the great synod of Nicsea permitted, not without the
will of God, the decision of a former council to be reviewed by a
later, in order that the judges, having before their eyes the proba-
bility 6f a revision, might examine with all carefulness, and the
accused might have confidence that their case had been decided

1861.] ShephercTs Early History of tlie Papacy. 455

ioeording to jastice, and not from any hostile feeling in the minds
of former judges.'

" The foundation is thus laid of the object of this letter : a for-
mer synodal sentence can be revised, and that by the authority of
a canon of the Nicene Council. Of course it is a direct falsehood
as respects the sentence of a provincial synod.

** Julius is then made to say that this is an ancient practice, and
an established custom. But the Nicene Council was held only
seventeen years before the supposed date of this letter, and there*
fore, except the writer forgot himself at the moment^ and spoke of
the Nicene Council as from the next century, when he may have
"been writing, he must allude to the authority of revision as an
established part of the canon law. But, previous to the accession
of Constantino, there is no evidence of the revision of any provin-
cial sentence, which is what is meant here, by the prelates of
another province. Nor, indeed, had there been after that event,
except in the single case of the Roman decision of Miltiades on the
Bonatist schism, which was reviewed by the Synod of Aries ; and the
allusion to that council in this letter makes me not the less sus-
picious of the Aries Council, although it was a revision of a Roman
sentence. But these proceedings — both at Rome and Aries — if
real, were uncanonical ; both were contrary to canon law. So that
it may be said there had not been known, at the time when this
letter is supposed to have been written, any instance of a revision
of a synodal sentence, and yet this writer calls it an ancient prac-
tice in the Church, confirmed by councils.

*' Having thus laid his foundation in falsehood, the next step in
the letter is to affirm that, even if the Orientals had not desired
a synod, and that he had urged it with a view to harass them on
account of the complaints of their suffering brethren, such a propo-
sal would have been reasonable and just. It would have been in
accordance to ecclesiastical usage,. and pleasing to God.

*' It is here advanced that he, even when a revision was not
agreed on by both parties, could, on the complaint of one of them,
bring the cause before him. This too, he says, was ecclesiastical.
He does not say in accordance with canon law, but that is implied.
It was ecclesiastical usage. Of course this is another falsehood.
At the same time he has not yet said that this power of revising
rested with him alone, as bishop of Rome ; he has only laid it down
generally.

" As he proceeds, he pretends to doubt that they really thought
all bishops of equal authority ; he treats their expressions as if
they had been only angry and passionate declamations, but he
states no rule of distinction.

"And towards the close he openly states that Athanasius and
Marcellus, according to the canons of the Church, should not have
been proceeded against without writing to the West, as they were

456 Shepherd* s Early History ^of the Papacy [Dec.

bishops, and moreover bishops not of common, but of Apostolical,
Churches.

« It is here implied that no Oriental bishop could be deposed
without previously making a reference to the West, that is, to
Rome, as he represents the Western Church, which is another
falsehood.

" And he adds that it was more particularly important that they
should have written to them concerning the Alexandrian Church.
' Do you not know that such was the custom to write to us first,
and so from hence the sentence to be delivered ? If there has been
any suspicion against the bishop of that city, you ought to have
written to the Church here.' But in the present instance they,
without having made the Roman Church acquainted with the facts,
but having done what they liked, desired that the Roman Church,
which had never condemned Athanasius, should join in their deci-
sion. Such was not the order of Paul, such was not the tradition
of the Fathers.

'* Here is an allusion to the forgery about the two Dionysiuses
already noticed, and which was no doubt written by the man that
wrote this letter.

'' And then peeps out the forger barefaced. ' I beseech you glad-
ly bear with me. The things I write are for the public good. What
we have received from the blessed Peter the apostle, that I made
known to you, and I would not have written, as / think that thetB
things are publicly known to aU men, if what has happened had not
disturbed us.* " (pp. 251-5.)

It is sufficiently plain from several incidental observations
in this and other passages, which we have cited, that Mr.
Shepherd unhesitatingly pronounces the history of the
Athanasian case to be a pure fiction, and that in what we
have cited from him, he is only giving the case as it stands
in the, (in his view, corrupt) historical narrative, which has
alone come down to us. We must complain, however,
that, even in this view of the question, Mr. Shepherd has
been guilty of a gross suppression in the particular in-
stance of Pope Julius* interference. He altogether con-
ceals the fact, that, in the letter which he is represented as
addressing to the Arian accusers of Athanasius, and in the
claims and pretensions embodied in that letter, the only
historians of the period whom we have, represent him as
merely acting in accordance with the recognised rights of
his see ; that Socrates declares that *' the ecclesiastical
canon prohibits the sanctioniuf? of such decrees, (as that by
which the Arians had deposed Athanasius,) without the

1851.] ShepherdCs Early History of the Papacy. 457

sentence of the Roman Bishop;''* that Sozomen in like
inanner avows, that there "was a law, founded upon the
dignity of his priesthood, which pronounces those acts in-
valid which were done against the sentence of the Roman
Bishop ;''t that Epiphanius, in the Historia Tripartita,
reiterates the same principle ; that Thqodoret, in relating
Julius' citation of Athanasius, and bis accusers to
Rome, represents him but as " acting in accordance with
the ecclesiastical law ;"| and that so notorious was this
law or usage, that even the pagan writer Ammanus
Marcellinus, relates in so many words, that *' although the
emperor knew the deposition and banishment of Athana-
sius to have been accomplished (at Alexandria), yet in his
unremitting hostility to him, he was exceedingly desirous
that the sentence should be conjifmed hy that authority
by which the bishops of the Eternal City are pre-
eminent."^

Surely these are items in the statement of the case im-
portant enough to deserve at least a passing notice. In
Mr. Shepherd's view, of course, they would not alter its
real bearings. He would^ find no difficulty in scout-
ing these, and a dozen similar testimonies, as equally
spurious with the document which they are, in his opmion,
intended to support ; but as it would cost him so little thus
to reject them from his estimate of the case — as he can
dispose, by a simple stroke of his pen, of Socrates, Sozo-
men, Theodoret, and even the Father of Ecclesiastical
History himself — he has the less excuse for passing them
over. If it be not more difficult to forge half-a-dozen
authorities than a single one such as that on which he
rests the case, it would at least exhibit in a more striking
light the daring, the ingenuity, and the industry of these
wholesale fabricators.

Such then is the picture of Papal pretensions in the four
first centuries, which the existing and hitherto recognised
records of the early history present, even when viewed, as
in Mr. Shepherd's case, '^through a Protestant glass of
the present day." We have now to see how Mr. Shep-
herd proceeds to deal with this prima-facie evidence.

* Lib. li. 23, p. 231 t Lib. iii. 9. p. 445. t Lib. ii, 4.
§ Amm. MarcoU. opp. LXV. rii. p. 70, Gronovius* Ed. Leyden,
1603.

VOL. XXXI.-NO. LXIL 10

458 Sliepherd's Early History of the Papacy. [Dec.

The reader will have gathered from what has been
already said, that he disposes of it by a most summary
process, declaring it to be all fabricated, tampered with,
mutilated, modified, and, by every other conceivable
variety of literary dishonesty, adapted, so as to sust£un the
groundless pretensions of modern Rome ! Even those
portions of it which are most discreditable to these very
pretensions, and which the duller champions of Protes-
tantism have hitherto been gulled into regarding as pre-
cious fragments of anticipated anti-Papalism — the pro-
tests of Polycrates, and Cyprian, and Firmilian, and JEu-
sebius of Nicomedia, and Gregory of Cappadocia, and
Meletius, and the rest ; even these are to him but the more
hidden lines of that web of fraud and falsehood, with which
the craft and ambition of Rome has interwoven her sys-
tem ! It matters not that all the eminent critics of this
and every former age, Protestant as well as Catholic,
Gallican^^' as well as Ultramontane — Papalists and Febro-
nians — the Ceilliers, the Mabillons, the JDupins, the Caves,
the Valois, the Saviles, the Fells, the Pearsons, the
Constants, even the Hardouins themselves, have agreed in
receiving these records as true and unadulterated. AH
this is of no weight in the present enquiry. Mr. Shepherd
has discovered new lights, to which every ^ eye before his
had been insensible, and his single verdict is to set all the
rest aside at once and for ever !

Such is literally the modest assumption on which Mr.
Shepherd's book proceeds !

We wish it were in our power to follow hini through all
the several chapters of the early history which he has se-
lected for the display of this undiscriminating scepticism ;
but we need hardly say, that as the doubt conveyed in a
single sentence, or even a single phrase, may require whole
pages for its solution, we might easily occup^y volumes in
the refutation of the dogmatism, unsubstantial as it, for
the most part, is, with which his book is filled. But we

* It id true that the bigoted Gallican Launoi (De Duob. Dionys.
77-1 i 7) questions the authority of St Cjprian's Letter (68th or
67th) on Marcian of Aries. But his doubts are discarded as utterly
groundless by the rest of the Gallican school, even hj Dnpin» ultra
Gallican as he was (i. 125), and at greater length bj TiUemont (ir.
22), who adduces the evidences of several Protestant critics in sup-
port of its authenticity. Indeed this is perfectly certain.

1851.] ShephercTs Early History of the Papacy. 459

shall at least be able to illustrate so much of the principles
by which Mr. Shepherd^s criticisms are guided, as will
show to what degree of credit they are in general en-
titled.

Once for all, then, we may say, that so monstrous an
example of the sophism " begging the question,*' as his
book presents, it has never been our fate to encounter. It
is a mass of assumptions from the beginning to the end.
We have already seen that the author commenced his in-
vestigation of the historical evidences of the claims of the
Papacy, *^ fully satisfied upon other grounds that they could
have no solid foundation ;'* and, from the first page to the
last, of his volume, he has kept this conviction steadily be-
fore his eyes. That any fact, any statement, any narra-
tive, of these early times, should appear to support the
modern claims of Rome, is quite enough, in his eyes, to
settle the question of the authenticity of such statement or
narrative. It becomes ipso fdcto^ by a regularly graduated
scale, — "suspicious,** ** startling,** ''absurd,** "incred-
ible,** *' monstrous,** " surpassing all belief!'* That Ire-
nseus and Polycrates, for instance, in writing on the Pas-
chal controversy, should not call in question the authority of
Pope Victor to interfere therein, he declares, " extraordi-
nary** (202), and " at the first glance, incredible** (ibid.) ;
Victor's alleged excommunication of the Asiatic Churches,
is in his eyes " a deed of such extraordinary and monstrous
character, as to exceed all beUef* (198) ; the fact of the
right of Pope Stephen to interfere in the aflEairs of the
Church of Spain, being supposed in the letter of Cyprian
on the subject, is quite sufficient to make him regard the
whole account of the case as " suspicious** (147) ; that the
clergy of Carthage should have been in the habit of con-
sulting Rome on anything that troubled them, is "curi-
ous" (137) ; that the bishops of the Council of Aries should
send their decrees to the Roman Bishop, in order that he,
" by reason of his greater jurisdiction, should make them
known throughout Christendom,'* renders the very existence
of the council more than problematical (226) ; the idea of the
eastern primates, in the affair of Athanasius, goinff to
Rome to submit their conduct to the judgment of Julius,
is " absurd** (251) ; that the history of Socrates, simply be-
cause of the picture which it gives of the relations of Rome
to the Eastern Church, should be " the composition of an
Oriental prelate of A.D. 450,** is " incredible** (69); that

460 SIiephercTs Early History of tlie Papacy. IDec.

Theodosius should, as he does in his well-known edict, have
referred the Eastern Bishops to Rome for their creed, would
have been " an insult'* (114) ; and, to sum up all, every
such statement as these, and every document supporting
such statement; must he a fabrication, for *' there can he
no doubt that truth has recorded nothirtg tuhatsoever of
the earlier centuries of the history of Kome V^ (71.)

In one word, this investigation of the evidence in fa-
vour of the Papal supremacy proceeds on the express sup-
position, that no such evidence can possibly exist; that
*^ history 7nust support common sense and Scripture, in
rejecting it" (pref.) ; and that the very idea of its favour-
ing the belief of a doctrine so unscriptural, and in itself so
untenable, must he fatal to the credibility of any state-
ment, no matter what its extrinsic verisimilitude may
chance to be. On this principle, any document which sup-
poses or implies it, must be regarded as a modem fabricar
tion. A work which contains any incidental allusion to it,
must be believed, though undoubtedly genuine in the main,
to have been so far tampered with for the purpose of sus-
taining the fraud : a history, in itself of admitted authenti-
city, if it should seem to favour the belief in any portion
of its narrative, is clearly so far falsified. Even where the
statement is at first sight unfavourable to the claim, and
in fact has been immemorially appealed to by its antago-
nists as fatal to the very idea of such claim, this must be
regarded but as a more refined and skilful fabrication, de-
vised for the sole purpose of disgruisin^^ the real fi^ud.
Firmilian's scornful disregard of Pope fetephen is as cer-
tainly, though far more covertly, the work of the forger,
as the abject and slavish submission of Dionysius. The
disgraceful recreancy of Liberius, is but a more subtle
disguise, assumed by the same master in the art of false-
hood, who has placed Julius on the pinnacle of authorita-
tive orthodoxy,, and represented him as the irresponsible
arbiter of faith and communion, alike to the East and the
West!

Accordingly, Mr. Shepherd considers it quite enough
that he should point out *' improbabilities,'* " suspicious
circumstances,*' "curious facts,'* "remarkable coinciden-
ces," or indulge in any other of the traditional forms of
inuendo, in order to set aside, without further ceremony,
even the best authenticated and most undoubted facts and
documents of history. He appears to have but little idea

1851.[ SftephercTs Early History of tlie Papacy. 461

of the use which might be made, and what de facto has been
made, of these principles of criticism. We should be very
curious to see him discuss, upon the principles upon which
his own enquiry into Papal history is based, any single
chapter in Strauss' book upon the Gospel Narrative. ^ He
would be hkely to find some inuendoes upon probabilities,
circumstances, facts, and coincidences, quite as plausible,
and infinitely more vital in their results, than those which
he so ostentatiously parades in his strictures upon the his-
tories on which " Romanists rely.'*

As a specimen of his mode of dealing with historical evi-
dence, we must content ourselves with the first of his
Proofs and Illustrations, viz. : — that upon Cyprian and the
so-called Cyprianic Letters ; and even with this we must
deal very summarily. It will have appeared fi'om the pas-
sages which we have already extracted, that the principles
of the writers of the correspondence which has hitherto
gone under the name of Cyprian, were of a character, to
use] Mr. Shepherd's phrase, ''more fashionable at Rome
than at Canterbury.'' Indeed, there is hardly an essen-
tial point in the claim of supremacy which they do not
either establish or presuppose. Mr. Shepherd gets rid of
all this very simply, by declaring that the whole corres-
pondence is a modem fabrication. And the arguments by
which he attempts to sustain this position are so ludicrous-
ly inconclusive, that we should feel some difficulty about
wearying our readers with any reference to them, were it
not that they may show once for all what is the character
of the entire pertbrmance. They are, in fact, a series of
assumptions, from the first to the last. We should pre-
mise that with the exception of a few doubts expressed by
one or two such sceptical critics as Rigault, Rivet, or
Launoi, regarding a few particulars, the whole body of
modem critics, even down to such writers as Bayle, Gib-
bon, and Dodwell, are agreed as to the genuineness and
perfectly truthful character of this correspondence. The
letters are cited by almost every ancient writer who refers
to the period, by Eusebius both in his History and in the
Chronicle, by St. Jerome in his Ecclesiastical Writers,
and ^ his Dialogue against Lucifer of Cagliari, and by
Pacian of Barcelona.

Against this authority Mr. Shepherd's difficulties are of
two kinds, intrinsic and extrinsic. We shall take them in
succession.

462 Shepherd's Early History of tlie Papacy. [Dec.

L His first argument to prove the fabrication of this
correspondence is^ that whereas up to the date at which it
is laid, there is '* no trace of any intercourse between the
Bishops of Rome and Carthage/* yet, during the period
over which this correspondence extends, as if by the lifting
up of a curtain, the two churches are seen in the closest
intimacy ; nothing is done at either see, especially at Car-
thage, without an instant communication of it to the other^
there being this difference between them, that Rome
speaks like a superior and Carthage like an inferior''

(127).

Now it is strange enough that Mr. Shepherd himself
supplies, in the very same paragraph, a perfectlv satisfac*
tory solution of this difficulty, in the fact which ne alleges,
that during this period of silence " we know scarcely any-
thing of either church/* Might it not have occurred to
him, as rather hard to expect, that whereas nothing is
known of either church, history should inform us of the
connection which subsists between them? But, besides,
will any one suppose that such intercourse as is found to
have subsisted during those troubled years, must always
have been maintainecl, even in times of comparative calm
and peace? Where are there, in the earlier history <rf
Carthage, events of such magnitude, and contests of such
interest, as those *' upon the lapsed'* and " on rebaptizing
heretics ?** When Mr. Shepherd shows, that, at an;^ pre-
vious period, such controversies had been in agitation at
Carthage, without any reference to Rome, there may be
some value in the contrast which he seeks to establish.
But until he shall have done this, it is of no weight what-
soever.

II. He" further argues, as evidence of the suspicious char-
acter of this correspondence, that from its .date forward, the
curtain drops again, and throughout the rest of the third
and the whole of the fourth century, there is no farther trace
of any such connection between Rome and Afirica. When
we read this astounding statement, we were disposed at
first sight to believe that he had forgotten the memor-
able Donatist controversy, which was repeatedly referred
to Rome under two successive pontificates ; that this
reference^was made hy the Emperor Constantino himself
soon after his conversion to Christianity; that the whole
affair is circumstantially related by Eusebius, in his his-
tory ; and that St. Augustine recognises the fitness and

1851.] Shepherd's Early History of the Papacy. 463

canonical propriety of the reference to the Roman Pon-
tiff, while he declares the appeal made to the emperor on
the part of the Donatists, to be irregular. But we dis-
covered, on a little further examination, that Mr. Shepherd
"was aware of all this, and of a great deal more, which
less far-seeing minds might suppose to be satisfactory evi-
dence ; but that he holds all tliis to be barefaced forgery ;
-diat he disbelieves this whole story of the Donatist appeal ;
denies the existence of the Council of Rome under Melchi-
ades ; and still more vehemently rejects the history of the
Council of Aries in the following year ! It is by a whole-
sale procedure such as this that he supports his statements
as to cessation of intercourse between Rome and Africa !
It is difl&cult to know to what class of evidence one
should appeal, in dealing with an adversary of principles
like these.

In truth Mr. Shepherd's attempt to point out intrinsic
incongruities and improbabilities in the statements con-
tained in this correspondence, (pp. 130-3,) if it has any force
at aU, resolves itself into a disbelief of the entire contro-
versy on the subject of the Lapsed. And yet if it be per-
mitted to call this into question, where is the fact in
history of which we can obtain certainty ? It is told cir-
cumstantially by the only professed historian of the period
whose rwritings have come down to us. It has left its
traces in the discipline of the Church, as well as in her
doctrinal statements. It is intimately and inseparably con-
nected with the history and the very existence of the Nova-
tian heresy ; and even the Donatist schism itself, although
it afterwards assumed a different form, had its origin in
the principles which this controversy tended to develope.
We may judge of the difficulties of a position which can
only be maintained by such a sacrifice of probability.

It is really painful to observe the petty circumstances on
which he fastens, in order to create an impression against
the genuineness of these letters. It would have been a
"monstrous breach of order,'* he contends, for the clergy
of Rome to have addressed the clergy of Carthage upon
the question of the Lapsed, without taking any notice of
their bishops, (134,) although the letter to which they
reply was written not by the bishop alone, nor by the
bishop in conjunction with the clergy, but by the clergy of
Carthage alone. Novatian^s letter is set down as *' un-
real,'* because it '* magnifies the Roman Church,'* and

464 ShephercTs Early History of the Papacy. [Dec.

because it refers to certain letters which had been sent
into Sicily, "without stating to whom they were directed/*
(pp. 133-6.) The letter of the Roman clergy to Cyprian,
one of the clearest and most satisfactory expositions of the
true principles that should regulate the dealings of the
Church with the Lapsed, which it would be possible to
desire, is declared to be "' unnatural" and "unreal,*' be-
cause it occupies "four pages without a fact!** It is
represented as improbable that the Roman clergy would
blame Cyprian for flying from the persecution at Carthage,
whereas they speak of foreign bishops who were at Rome
and at Carthage at the very same time. " Why,** it is
asked, " should the Roman clergy have been so angry with
Cyprian for a temporary concealment in the neighbourhood
of his people, and so friendly with these, foreign and
Italian, who had entirely deserted their flocks?' The
fact being, that the bishops of whom there is question had
assembled for the purpose of holding a council, and so^ far
from flying from danger, (the charge made against
Cyprian,) had actually braved it in its very strongholds.

Such are, substantially, the intrinsic improbabilities on
account of which we are called on to reject the authority
of the ancient historians, and the verdict of all modem
critics, of every conceivable shade of opinion !

II. But this is as nothing when compared with Mr.
Shepherd's mode of dealing with the extrinsic arguments
in favour of the genuineness of the correspondence.

" These letters," he tells us, " are noticed previous to
the fifth century, in a professed translation of Eusebius's
* Chronicle,' by Jerome, in Jerome's book on * Ecclesias-
tical Writers,' in a dialogue stated to be written by J erome
against the disciples of Lucifer, bishop of Calari, and in a
work which goes under the name of Pacian."

One might suppose that, when the documents in ques-
tion are merely a few letters, in array of authority like
this, (even though it was complete, which it is not, for it
omits Eusebius s History,) should be sufl&cient to^ satisfy
any reasonable enauirer. But this is nothing in Mr.
Sheoherd's eyes. He disposes of them all without the
smallest ceremony : they are all, he declares, either spu*
rious or interpolated, in all their statements about
Cyprian which bear upon the Papacy.

1851.] SkephercFs Early History of the Papacy. 465

(1) The Chronicle^*' of Eusebius, he maintains, is inter-
polated. His proof is rather a strange one. It says too
QHuck about Cyprian, he holds, to be genuine. By a
number of earUer citations from the "Chronicle in which
Pope Victor and his connexion with the Paschal con-
troversy, are brought prominently forward, and which
Mr. S. endeavours to show were ingrafted upon the origi-
nal for the purpose of establishing the claim of E/Oman
supremacy, he infers that the similar references to Cyprian
were intended to subserve the same ambitious designs.
But, unluckily, for all this assumption, he has no proof
whatsoever to offer, and, on the contrary, it rather unfor-
tunately happens, even by his own admission (177,) that
this designing interpolator has omitted the material point
of the whole story of Victor — the only point on which the
Roman claim could really be made to rest — his attempted
excommunication of the Asiatics !

(2) His argument against the purity of the present text
of St. Jerome's Ecclesiastical Writers, is nothing more
than a series of the like silly assumptions. The notices of
Cyprian cannot, he holds, be genuine, because they are
too frequently and too prominently introduced ; inasmuch
as besides a special article on Cyprian himself, there are
also allusions, to him under the heads of Pontius, of
Dionysius of Alexandria, and of Novatian ! Is it possible
to carry this reckless absurdity farther ? Nothing could
be more natural than each and every one of these refer-
ences to Cyprian.

• (1) Pontius, the first of the writers referred to, was the
Deacon and bosom friend of Cyprian, and actually com-
posed his Life. Mr. Shepherd, of course, declares this
Life to be/* manifestly spurious'' (164.) But there is no
^ second opinion among critics upon the subject of its

* In tho course of his argument he alludes to the alleged Arme-
nian translation of the Chronicle, published by Cardinal Mai, and,
as usual, expresses strong doubts as to its being a translation at
all. It is plain, however, that he has not the smallest knowledge
of the subject, and is not oven aware that since Cardinal Mai's
Latin version of the Armenian translation, tho original Armenian
text has actually been published by the Mechpitarists at San Laz-
zaro, in two vols., 4to.

466 Shepherd's Early History of the Papacy. Dec.

authenticity. Even Gibbon regards it as a genuine and
most interesting historical record.'^

(2) Diouysius of Alexandria was himself engaged in the
very same controversy on rebaptizing heretics, which forms
the leading topic of the more important portion of Cypri-
an's correspondence; and therefore nothing could be more
natural than to connect them together.

Mr. Shepherd, however, alleges, what would be, if true,
avery serious difficulty, viz., tnat Jerome's statement is
at variance with that of the Church History of Eusebius
(164.) But what is the fact? We are bound to suppose
that Mr. Shepherd cannot possibly even have looked at the
book to which he so boldly refers. Eusebius most ex-
plicitly declares that this very Dionysius wrote to Stephen
''the first of his epistles on baptism, as there was no
little controversy whether those turning from any heresy
whatever,^ should be purified by baptism ;''T thus con-
firming, in the clearest terms, the collateral evidence of
Jerome in the Ecclesiastical Writers.^

(3) So far is the reference to Cyprian, under the head
of Novatian, from being suspicious, that, on the con-
trary, we .should have considered the omission of such
reference far more extraordinary; Was Mr.^ Shepherd
aware, that according to the most probable opinion, rfova-
tian himself is the author of one, at least, of the letters in
the correspondence ? Does he ^ forget that the most
strenuous efforts were made by him and his followers to
obtain the support of the rigorist party in Africa; that he
was, in truth, almost as much mixed up with the African
controversy on the Lapsed, as with the Roman ; and that
Cyprian was the heart and soul of the opposition maintain-
ed m both Churches, against his harsh and cruel policy
towards the fallen ? Surely it would be inconceivable that
the mention of Novatian should not have elicited the nanae
of his great and successful antagonist ; and the terms in
which he is alluded to in the Ecclesiastical Writers, are
precisely those which would have occurred to any one
acquainted with the circumstances of the controversy.

And when it is recollected that St. Cyprian was, up to
the time at which St. Jerome wrote, almost the only, or^ at
least, the most important, representative of the Christian
literature of the West, it will be at once understood that a

» Vol. L 560. t VII. ii. p. 248, Cruse's TranslatioiL

1S61.] Shepherd^ s Early History of the Papacy. 467

iwrestem critic would naturally not alone seize every oppor-
tunity that might oflFer itself, but even seek out studiously,
cuid create other opportunities of indulging the i)ride of a
bellow provincial, oy the exhibition of the merits of so
dsUnguished a bishop and so powerful a writer.

The objections agamst the authenticity of the Dialogue
against the Luciferians, are of the same frivolous and
wbitrary character, consisting chiefly of alleged improba-
l)ilities in the narrative of events which it supplies. It
would carry us far beyond our limits to enter into this
profitless discussion, and, indeed, the reader may suffi-
ciently estimate the nature of the arguments on which Mr.
Shepherd relies, when we inform him that Mr. Shepherd
carries his scepticism as far as to doubt, and even deny, the
existence of any schism originated by Lucifer of Oagliar
(pp. 165-6.) Why there is not a fact in the history of
the western Church, of the fourth century, more ^ satisfac-
torily established ; nor were the traces of its influence
entirely removed for nearly a century after the death of
theprelate with whom it had its origin.

We are tempted to present, as a closing specimen of his
principles of criticism, the arguments by which he attempts
to get rid of the last testimony to the genuineness of the
Cyprianic Letters, that of Pacian, Bishop of Barcelona.

" On the titlepage is the name of Pacian ; and on referring to
Jerome, who is he^e perhaps unpolluted, we read : — ' Pacian, bishop
of Barcelona, in the Pyrenees, celebrated for his chastity and
eloquence, for his way of life and speech, wrote several small works,
one called Kepfios, and another against the Novatians. He is
already dead, in extreme old age, in the reign of Theodosius ;* that
is, within twelve years of the time Jerome was writing.

** The work to which I am alluding is said to be this book against
the Novatians. But I have learnt to believe, and I think the
reader will be convinced also, if he has the patience to weigh my

5 roofs, that attention is to be paid to the titles of the books which
erome quotes. My impression is, that he has seen every book
which he mentions, except in cases were he distinctly tells us that
he had not ; and that he, whatever may have been the case with
his interpolator, was very exact in transcribing the titles. But the
book in question has no such title as ' against the Novatians ;' it is
intituled, * Three Letters to Symprouian.* There is nothing to
show that the writer was Pacian, nor where he lived, nor to whom
he was writing ; and the internal evidenco is, that the writer was
an African. It is a very absurd story that introduces the Cyprian
documents. The parties are strangers^ or almost so, and live thirty

468 Shepherd!* 8 Early History of the Papacy. [Dec.

days* journoj apart ; and STmpronian, whom Pacian addresses as
* my lord/ ' most illustrious lord/ and then ' brother/ sends a mes-
senger with his letters to Pacian, telling him that no one throughout
the whole world had convinced him of the error of his opinions, bnc
yet seeking to argue with Pacian. As it turns out, however, (and
if this letter is a specimen of his usual method of conducting a coa-
troversy, there is not much wonder that he had yet been unanswer-
ed,) he had forgotten, although ho had sent a man a month's
journey with his letter, to state distinctly what his opinions were.
So Pacian, in the first letter, argues as if his correspondent was a
Montanist, introducing Cyprian however ; and, after a few observa-
tions, says he would have entered more at large into the subject,
only (as usual) the servant was waiting. This is a very significant
excuse, as it prevades so many of these suspicious documents. But
as a thirty days' journey lay between him and his correspondent
(although Pacian carofuUy conceals the place of Symproniau's resi-
dence, calling it ' the city,') it might have been thought that the
messenger could have waited a day longer. At the same time, if
the messenger had waited for the first letter as long as it would
seem he had to wait for the second, forty days, he might have some
reason for being in a great hurry at last.

<' The second and third letters are evidently intended to bolster
up the Cyprian letters, by quoting the peculiar facts contained ia
them, such as the name, character, and proceedings of Novatii9,
the African presbyter, under pretence of warding off the attacks of
a Novatian. It is impossible that Pacian*s character for learning
could have induced a stranger to send so far to hear the truth from
his lips. A man wlio proves that ^ Catholic* means, ' as the moro
learned think, * obedience to all the commands,* *that is, ' of God/
by the text, ' For as by one man*s disobedience many were made
sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous,*
is not likely to have been the subject of fame, or to have received
Jerome's panegyric. The allusion to the Apollinarians as well-
known heretics, classing them among the Phrygians and Novatians,
of itself is a fair presumption that Pacian was not the author of
the letters. lie died in extreme old ago, about the time when that
heresy was first condemned in the East, its birthplace ; and it is
very unlikely, even if the heresy had penetrated the Pyrenees, that
a man of his years, and he does not write like an old man, would
have been at that time writing a book, or if he had been, and had
noticed the new heresy, that he would not have suid something
about its peculiar tenets/' (pp. 173-5.)

Perhaps the most remarkable feature in this criticism^is
the admission with which it opens, that j)03sihly this citO'
tiotifrom Jerome may be genuine. This is a great deal
from Mr. Shepherd.

1851.] Shepherd's Early History of the Papacy. 469

His conjecture, therefore, is, that although Pacian wrote
some work against the Novatians, it was not that which
we now have under his name.

Now we need only say, that there is hardly a single
point in all the critical history of the fourth century, less
susceptible of doubt than the identity of Pacian's work
against the Novatians, and that which is still preserved.
Tillemont, one of the most calm and dispassionate of
critics, pronounces it *' one of the noblest monuments of
the doctrine of the Church, and of the erudition and piety
of the author/'''" Mr. Shepherd's only direct objection
that the'work which we posesss is not entitled Against the
Novatians^ is either a very foolish or a very dishonest
one. Like almost all the controversial or didactic works
of the age, (both sacred and profane,) it is in three letters
addressed to Sempronianus, a Novatian nobleman, who
had consulted Pacian on the doctrines of Novatianism.
J3ut although addressed to him in the form of letters,
it is professedly, from the beginning to the^ end, an
argument against Novatianism; and the third letter
is, in fact, a formal reply to a .Novatian tract,
which Sempronianus had sent to Pacian for examina^
tion. The conjectural improbabilities as to the time at
which the book was written do not deserve to be taken into
account for a moment against the positive testimonies
which we actually possess ; but, even as conjectures, they
cannot be sustained. To take the most prominent of these
as an example, Mr. Shepherd objects, that as Pacian,
according to St. Jerome, died under Theodosius, it is
improbable he could have spoken of the ApoUinarians
" as well-known heretics." Now there is not the slightest
difficulty in the matter. St. Jerome's book was written in
392,1 three years before the death of Theodosius. Pacian
may have died, therefore, at any time between 379 and
392. Now even taking the earliest of these dates, the
ApoUinarians were already, for a considerable time, '* well-
known heretics." Their principles had been public for
years before, and the heresy itself was formally condemned
in .377. And, in fact, so far from presenting any difficulty
as to the time at which the tract may be supposed to have
been written, it should rather be taken as a confirmation of
its ordinarily received date. What is more natural than

* VIII. 227. * TiUemont, VIII. 228.

470 SliephercTs Early History of the Papacy. [Dec.

that a winter should take^ as the first illustration which
presented itself to his thoughts, the example of a recent and
popular heresy, which was then actually under discussion^
and, as such, more likely to occur both to his own mind
and that of his correspondent ?

We have already observed that in -enumerating fp. 152)
the extrinsic evidences of the genuineness of these letters,
Mr. Shepherd omits to mention the Ecclesiastical History
of Eusebius. ^ Now the forty-third chapter of the seven^
book of this history contains a very explicit mention of the
most important portion of the correspondence. " There
are also,** we read, '^ epistles of Cornelius, bishop of Rome,
addressed to Fabius, bishop of Antioch, which show the
transactions of the council of Rome, and also the opinions
of all those in Italy and Africa, and the regions there.
Others there are, also ivritten in the Roman^ tongue, from
CypHan, and the bishops luith him hi Africa/'^

It is true that Mr. Shepherd alludes to this passage in
a subsequent page (160,) but it is only to throw discredit
upon its authenticity, the principal argument against it
being, that " Cyprian has no title given to him, which,
he assures us, is contrary to the invariable practice of the
genuine Eusebius! Unluckily for Mr. Shepherd's point,
(even if it were worth considering for a single moment,)
the genuine Eusebius does give Cyprian his title, calling
him *' Cyprian, and the bishops with him in Africa;
although Mr. Shepherd has found it expedient to suppress
this title in the reference which he makes to EuseoiuSy
(which is cited with inverted commas,) changing the phrase
*' Cyprian, and the bishops with him in Africa, ' into sim-
ple ** Cyprian and the Afncans^' (160.) We own we
should have expected more caution from so inveterate an
enemy of forgery !^

Such is a very imperfect description of the process by
which Mr. Shepherd disposes of historical authorities, when
they stand in the way of his favourite views. In the case of
the Letters of Cyprian, he begins by discrediting them al-
together in themselves, because they present a view of the
relations between Rome and the other churches which,
"upon other grounds he is satisfied" must be false, and to
which, looking, as he does, "throuerh a Protestant glass," he
has deliberately shut his eyes. Under this assumption, he

• »^— ^^ ■ ■ ■■ .. I ^ ■ ■ ^^ ■ ■ ■■»■■-■■■ ■ ■ ■ ^^— — I , ■ — ■ — i^^^^—— — ^^■^^■^^■^a

♦ p. 341 Cruse's Tran.

1861.] SkephercTs Early History of the Papacy. 471

discovers a number of petty improbabilities, seeming incon-
sistencies in the narrative, diflBculties of time, space, or cir-
cumstances, which he di^ifies into the pame of " intrinsic
proofs and illustrations.*' He finds this statement to be
*' suspicious ;'* that circumstance *^ curious;'' another
'* incredible," and pronounces the entire result to be " un-
natural," '* unreal, ' and to bear convincing evidence of
the forger's hand. This point once satisfactorily estab-
blished, all the rest is easy. The extrinsic evidence pre-
sents no diflBculty; the judgment of the entire critical
world. Catholic, Protestant, and unbelieving, he sets aside
as unworthy of consideration, or rather ignores altogether ;
and it is not a little amusing, that as far as we can at pre-
sent recollect, there is hardly a single allusion from the be-
ginning to the end of the volume to any one great name in
the annals of criticism, even in confirmation of the views
which he is desirous to sustain. The testimonies of con-
temporary or nearly contemporary writers, are but, in his
eyes, so many additional threads in the web of forgery,
which he easily disentangles by the same process. Luse-
bius's Histoiy, he declares, is manifestly interpolated. His
Chronicle is confessedly imperfect, and does not profess to
be more than a translation; this translation has plainly been
tampered with; Jerome's "Ecclesiastical Writers*' presents
evident traces of the same hand; Pontius the Deacon's Lile
of Cyprian is a manifestly spurious work ; the Dialogue
against the Luciferian Schismatics is a clumsy fabrication ;
and in truth there never was such a schism at all ; and as
for Pacian's " Letters to Sempronianus," it is a manifest
anachronism to imagine that they could have been com-
posed by him; audit is equally manifest, from their very
contents, that the writer was the same who has left us so
much of his other handiwork in the Cyprianic correspon-
dence, and whose sole object in drawing up these letters
was to support, by collateral evidence, the monstrous fraud
of which he had then laid the foundation !

In all this, too, Mr. Shepherd's contempt for the author-
ity of history with regard to facts, is equally chivalrous.
He never lets *^ a fact" stand for a moment in his way. He
has as little difficulty in sacrificing the existence of a
heresy, a schism, a council, a controversy, as he finds in
denying the genuineness of a book. He regards the whole
story of the jPaschal controversy under Victor, which the
benighted throng of common historians look upon as hav-

472 Shepherd's Early History of the Papacy. [Dec.

ing supplied materials which agitated the Church for more
than two centuries, as a pure ** fabrication;** — the alleged
fact itself being merely a Romanist i)eg, whereon to hang
their " monstrous claim'* to interference in the affairs of for-
eign churches. For the similar contest under Stephen, on
liebaptizing, he discovers a similar origin. The dispute
about the Lapsed, he would represent as equally unreal.
The whole Donatist appeal to Constantine, to Melchiades,
and to Sylvester, is, on his showing, a complete fiction ; so
also are the councils of Rome and Aries, which are alleged
to have been held for its ad^j^ustmcnt ; so is the great coun-
cil of Sardica and the seceding and rival Arian council of
Philippopolis, so are the later councils of Milan and Rimi-
ni, at least in all the received details of their history; and
strangest of all, the history of Liberius is utterly irrecon-
cilable, not alone with known facts, but even with proba-
bility itself !

Like most paradoxical theorists, too, Mr. Shepherd
reasons at different times upon the most different, and in-
deed, most contradictory principles. At one time he argues
against the genuineness of a document, fi'om the fact of its
not being mentioned by some contemporary, or nearly con-
temporary writer, for example by Eusebius, or by St.
Jerome. At another time he urges the fact of a book's
being noticed by those writers at all, as a suspicious,^ and
perhaps fatal circumstance. One time too little is said of
a book or of a fact to be compatible with its authenticity ;
another time the, as he calls it, too-marked and prominent
notice which it receives, can only be explained on the sup-
position of fraud and design !

And thus, for example, in the case of the Letters of St.
Cyprian, his theory of their spuriousness involves the fol-
lowing process : —

1. The long series of letters to and from Cyprian, and
a great variety of correspondents at Rome, at Carthage,
in Asia, in Gaul, in Spain, must have been compiled by
this industrious forger, or knot of forgers, fully two cen-
turies after their alleged date. And the reader need but
look into these letters, and observe the minute and close
details of persons, doubts, and opinions, with which the^
are filled, in order to form an idea of the ingenuity requi-
site for such a fabrication.

2. The forger, in order to sustain this fundamental fi*aud,
must have systematically falsified the whole groundwork

1651.] SlufphercCs Early History of the Papacy. 473

of the history of the period. He must have invented the
account of the contest about the Lapsed ; the letters of
communion granted by the martyrs ; the scandals and re-
criminations of Novatian and , his opponents, and a
thousand minute circumstances of them all. Above
all, he must have invented the whole history of the Rebap-
tizing controversy.

3. He must have tampered with the History of Eusebius
in numberless places, not only by introducing allusions
whereby to strengthen and support his fraud, but what is
far more difficult, by suppressing or modifying every state-
ment inconsistent with its credibihty.

4. He must have repeated the same process in the Latin
translation of the History, by Ruffinus.

5. He must have dealt still more summarily with St.
Jerome's Ecclesiastical Writers ; — which in fact, to judge
from Mr. Shepherd's account, has been " doctored" in
almost every article, for the purpose of lending its authority
to Cyprian.

6. He must have gone to the still more extraordinary
length of first fabricating a book, Pontius's Life of Cypri-
an, for the mere purpose of inserting in Jerome's Ecclesi-
astical Writers an article upon it, into which a notice of
these letters was to be introduced ; — and this although the
Life itself gives no support to them !

7. He must not only have fabricated Jerome's so-called
*' Dialogue against the Luciferians," but he must even
have invented the whole story of the Luciferian schism, in
order to be able to write against it !

8. He must have forged a " most improbable'' corres-
pondence between Pacian and Sempronianus, in order
to pass it off upon the world as the '* Book against the
Novatians" of this author described by Jerome in his Ec-
clesiastical Writers ; and yet must have done this so clum-
Bily and imperfectly, as to leave it even still doubtful
whether this can possibly be the book to which Jerome
refers !

These are but a few of the more prominent assump-
tions involved in Mr. Shepherd's theory. There are
besides a thousand nameless, partly expressed, partly
implied, prejudgments of the case, which it would be too
long to enumerate, but which every reader at all acquaint-
ed with the subject, will easily discover. And what we

VOL. XXXI.— No. LXII. 11

474 Shepherd^s Early History of the Papacy. [Dec^

have shown of the case of the Cyprianic Letters^ is
equally true of that of all the rest, and perhaps in some
more strikingly so, than in that of St. Cyprian.

It is time to draw these observations to a close. But
there is one ground of objection to the authenticity of a
fact which is so exceedingly unusual, that we cannot pass it
over. After all that we have seen on the subject of the
interpolation of St. Jerome^s Ecclesiastical, and the trans-
lation of Eusebius's Chronicle, will the reader believe,
that the silence of the ** interpolated'^ books, regarding a
statement otherwise supported, is urged as a reason for
disbelieving that statement ? If we had not the passage
actually under our eyes at this moment, we could hardly
venture to think it possible. But if any one will take the
trouble of tuniing to page 192, he will find Mr. Shepherd
seriously urging against the truth of the alleged accusation
preferred to Pope Dionysius against his namesake of Alex-
andria, the fact of if /i^ silence of those interpolated hooks,
and even of the portion of them which he holds to he inr-
terpolated, regarding this accusation ! In other words
the story about Dionysius of Alexandria is a fabrica-
tion, because wc do not find any trace of it in the &bricated
Chronicle of Eusebius, or the interpolated Ecclesiastical
Writers of Jerome !

But we should never have done were we to pursue to
the end the numberless wild and extravagant assumptions
with which this strange book is filled. Indeed it is, from
the first page to the last, a dechu'ation of war against every
recognised law of history and criticism. No amount of
authority is sufficient to shelter against his scepticism any
work which may run counter to his views. He rejects
the story of Dionysius of Alexandria, just referred to,
although attested by the Historical Tracts of St. Athan-
asius, and by St. Basil's work ^' On the Holy Spirit/' both
of which he unhesitatingly pronounces to be forgeries.
With equal intrepidity he sets aside a host of authorities,
upon the later history of the fourth century — Athanasius,
Epiphanius, Gregory of Nazianzum, Jerome, Hilaiy,
and the historians Socrates, Sozomcn, and Theodoret ;
and we may safely assert, that there is hardly a single work
of that period, the authority of which is not either actually
questioned, or at least is not liable to the veiy same diffi-
culties which he has urged as reasons for rejecting those
testimonies which we have seen him discard.

^N

V 1851.] State Bishops. 475

So extravagant, indeed, are the principles upon which
they proceed, that it may be doubted whether we have
not dealt too seriously with these assumptions. But Mr.
Shepherd is only an exaggerated specimen of a school
which has been making some progress in our later histori-
cal literature. As a type of a class, although in some
respects an extravagant one, we have deemed it expedient
to devote a few pages to an exposure of his inconsistencies.
And there is at least one useful deduction to be derived
from this lengthened exposition of his view of the early
history of the Papacy. His work will at least make it
plain, that if what the whole world, until enlightened by
Mr. Shepherd, has hitherto received as genuine history,
be indeed deserving of the name, the modern claims of
the Papacy are fully borne out by the picture which it
discloses ; and that in order to dislodge the See of Rome
from the pre-eminence over the churches which history
assigns to it, every recognised principle of criticism must
be reversed ; the greatest names of old must be dislodged
from the position which they have traditionally occupied,
and the whole array of the venerated monuments of
ancient learning must be discarded as a clumsy work of the
dishonest aud unscrupulous fabricator, and the still more
unscrupulous suborner of forgery.

Akt. V. — Relums : Ecclenastical Commission; and Archhhlioprics
and Bishoprics. Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be printed,
16 June, 1851.

IN the annals of man, events sometimes become so
associated with the date of their occun-ence, as to give
the latter an individuahty, which it were otherwise difficult
to conceive of a space of time. Our French neighbours,
especially, have a great predilection for this association of
events aud dates ; and they recall to mind all the great
crimes and phases of their first revolution, as well as the

/

476 Stale Bishops. [Dec.

historical deeds of more recent times, by the bare mention
of the day on which they took place. When we, in this
country, resort to a similar practice, we are content to
refer to 'the year simply. 1 has, the revolution which
drove the Stuarts from the throne is inseparably connected
with the year 1688 ; and the two futile attempts to replace
them upon it, are compendiously cited as the ^15 ana '45.
Thus, also, the year 1829 will always be known among us
as the year of Catholic emancipation ; 1832, as that of
parliamentary reform; and 1845, of the railway mania.
Thus, also, will the past year become a popular era; and
although it will often be connected in the minds of many
with the glories of the great Exhibition, we may venture
to predict that it will be better known in history as the
year of the bishops.

Its dawn found the nation raving in high fever about
bishops. The executive of the State opened the session of
the legislature with urgent demands for protection against
a blow said to have been aimed by a Bishop against the
prerogative of the crown and the liberties of the people.
That Bishop, it appears, had appointed other Bishops to
superintend his flock in this country. His spiritual supre-
macy over that flock was, it is true, universally admitted
as a fact, and recognised as a right. ^ His power to create
Bisho])s was not disputed ; and it logically followed that his
authority to circumscribe within certain local limits the
exercise of their episcopal functions could not be called into
question. Had he, indeed, but advanced one step further,
and coined respectable polysyllabic appellatives ending in
*' us" or ^' OS," for the several districts into which he par-
celled out his spiritual em[)irc, his aggression would have
been no aggression ; the British Lion would have lain dor-
mant, and the British Parliament would not have retro-
graded a century. But, Diis aliter visum. His Holiness
preferred Saxon to Greek or Roman names for his English
bishoprics, and he convulsed the country.

" It is thy name that is miae enemy !

i»

With the Archbishopric of Melipotamus, good John Bull
would have had no quarrel ; but alas ! it was styled West-
niinster,and thereupon the knavish few taught, and the fool-
ish many believed that the crown was insulted, the national
church attacked, and the enslavement of the people com*

1851.] Stale Bishops. 477

passed. Who shall henceforth say that there is no magic
m words ? Who shall henceforth believe that

"Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title V*

The division of the country into spiritual districts was
spoken of as though' the work had been performed with
spade and pickaxe ; the promulgation of the new ecclesias-
tical constitution was regarded as tantamount to an abro-
gation of the '* glorious^ ^ one ; and the establishment of the
newly appointed prelates was thought as fatal to the peace
of our hamlets, as if these were delivered over to the horrors
of a military occupation. The people of Great Britain
had not been in such a pother since the time of the change
of the calendar from the old to the new style ; when popular
indignation ran so high against the minister who effected
the alteration, that he could not appear in public without
being assailed with cries of " give us back our eleven
days,*' which the exasperated multitude insisted they had
lost by the measure. The "Papal Aggression^ mania
will add a singular chapter to the already bulky history of
popular delusions and religious animosities ; but it will find
its way down to history without our help ; and we refer to
it to show that it alone would have sufficed to give an
episcopal celebrity to the year which has just closed.

The Bishops of the EstabUshed Church, however, may
fairly claim to share this honour. They did not, it is true,
frighten an entire nation out of its propriety, by conjuring
up gaunt spectres of invasion, conquest, and slavery. They
were satisfied with filling a humbler character on the
world's stage. They did the comic part of the business,
and treated the world to some amusement, after the more
serious drama of the ecclesiastical titles. Their contribution
however, to the illustration of their distinguished order, was
not as well calculated as that of their rivals, to arrest gene-
ral attention ; and as it might possibly sink to the bottom
of that stream which carries men's deeds to posterity, if a
hand were not stretched forth to support it, we willingly
plunge to their assistance. For although no violent ad-
mirers of the Established Church, we ^do not object to
render it a service, when in doing so we advance the true
interests of every persuasion.

Although it was not until 1836 that the Legislature took

478 State Bishops. [Dec.

up the question of Church Reform, — which means, in this
iron age, not the amendment of the doctrines, or the im-
provement of the discipline of the church, but the regula-
tion of its revenues, — the scandalous misapplication of enor-
mous funds which had been originally intended, and might
be usefully applied, for far different purposes, had long
before been the subject of popular complaint and remon-
strance. It was believed that the Anglican bishops were in
the receipt of immense revenues; and the best friends of
the Establishment, if they did not join with those who dis-
sented from her creed, in demanding that her wealth
should, hke all other national resources, be applied to na-
tional purposes, advocated at least a more equitable, and a
more useful distribution of it. Such proposals, however,
had long been met, — as proposals of reform are very com-
monly met by the partizans of abuses, — with vituperation.
They were stigmatized as impious and dishonest. Any
interference with the property of the Church was an attack
on religion. ^ The income of a bishop was as sacred as an
article of faith. Curiosity to know its amount, or a wish
to divert any portion of it from the pockets of his succes-
sors into other channels, could spring only from a mind
deficient in religious principle. If argument Vas stooped
to, it started from that fruitful source of fallacy, metaphor.
The Church become, like the Bank of England, an old
lady ; and like all other old ladies, she had a right to do
what she liked with her own. The nation had no concern
with, or interest in, her property, and had no more right to
interfere with her distribution of it, than to dictate to any-
individual how he should spend his money. To advise her
was impertinent, to remonstrate with her was unwarrant-
able, to undertake the management of her funds, and to
apply them to the advancement of religion and morality,
were sacrilege and plunder. But these weapons, however
efficacious they have hitherto proved against a radical re-
form of the temporalities and government of the Establish-
ed Church, did not succeed in preserviug all her pecuniary
corruptions intact. One of the earliest fruits of the Re-
form Act was the appointment of a commission to inquire,
among other things, into the revenues of the dioceses of
England and Wales. The commissioners, in the prosecu-
tion of their inquiry, addressed a series of questions to the
incumbents touching the amount of their gross receipts
from their various sources of income, and the necessary

1851.]

State Bishops.

479

outgoings which reduced the gross, to the net income ;
and from the returns which were made in answer to those
questions, the average net annual income of the Arch-
bishops and Bishops during the years 1829-1835, appeared
to be as follows : —
That of

As Estimated

As Estimated

by the

by the

Incumbents.

Commissioners.

£. s. d.

£. s. a.

The Abp. of Canterburj

21,863 13 3

22,365 10 2

The Abp. of York

11,437 17 2

11,725 6 11

The Bishop of London

13,890 17 b

15.045 0 11

Durham

19,813 16 4

22,185 8 8

Winchester

10,372 9 5

10,654 3 7

St Asaph / 5. 990 17 in
and Bangor \ 4,070 14 4/

10,661 12 3

9,968 17 5

Bath and Wells

5,940 11 11

6,011 0 2

Carlisle

2,613 9 4

2,592 4 11

Chester

2,910 3 1

3,022 15 JO

Chichester

3,587 10 8

3,560 10 8

• St. David's

2,820 9 10

2.915 2 4

Ely

8,120 13 11

9,597 6 1

Exeter

2,794 1 0

1,571 10 9*

Gloucester jf 2,137 7 ll\
and Bristol 12,084 19 4/

4,222 7 3

4,304 2 3

Hereford

2,658 17 2

2,797 18 0

Lichfield

4.311 8 8

3,660 10 11

Li ncoln

3,680 16 1

3,747 10 10

Llandafif

1,450 6 1

1.043 14 I'O

Norwich

4,465 15 2

4,517 8 1

Oxford

1,630 9 5

1.505 4 5

Peterborough'

3,384 17 5

3,363 15 9

Rochester

2,195 17 2

2,180 8 7

Salisbury

5,826 1 11

6.012 8 0

Worcester

7,309 4 6

7,301 13 1

♦ This Bishop returned as part of his episcopal income, the fol-
lowing items, which were omitted bj the commissioners in framing
their estimate of the income of the see.
Net proceeds from the rectorj of Shobrooke £277 2 10

Ditto, Treasurership .. 210 10 5

Ditto, Residentiarjship annexed to Treasurership 735 7 1

480 State Bishops. [Dec,

It may be mentioned, in passing, that the public have
not very generally had sufficient faith in the disinterested-
ness and veracity of the spiritual bench, to attach implicit
credence to the accuracy of their returns. The profound
mystery in which the wealth of the Church had been long
and obstinately shrouded undoubtedly gave much exag-
geration to the popular estimate of its amount. On the
other hand, the bishops trembling in the presence of a
dreaded and impending reform, had cogent reasons for
desiring to make their incomes appear as low as possible ;
and the popular mind was sceptical enough to doubt
whether they would allow their material interests to suffer
through any over-chivalrous love of truth, or abstract sense
of right. It was remarked, indeed, that the late Arch-
bishop of Canterbury had not always been consistent in
the accounts which he had given, or authorized his agents to
give, of the income of his see ; having represented it, when
lie wanted to borrow money, higher, by many thousand
pounds, than he subsequently returned it to the commis-
sioners. The stationary state of the London revenue,
also, notwithstimding the daily growing city of palaces,
extending over the l?addington estate, was the subject
of much comment ; and those who acquitted the bishop of
the fashionable fraud of cooking his accounts, found it
more difficult to rescue him from the imputation of neg-
lecting the management of the diocesan property. Whether
this incredulity was well founded, or the bishops were
unduly distrusted, are questions which we had not the
means of answering. The truth may possibly lie between
the black book and the blue one ; but, for our part, we
shall side with the bishops, and shall willingly assume the
correctness of the episcopal figures.

The reader, on casting his eye over the above table, will
probably be struck by the circumstance that, in most
cases, the bishops estimated their net revenues lower than
did the commissioners, who, like ourselves, assumed the
perfect accuracy of their returns, and based their calcula-
tions upon them. This their lordships had effected by
deducting some strange items from their gross receipts.
Thus the late Archbishop of Canterbury returned, under
"heads of expenditure,^' which he proposed to deduct from
the gross, in estimating net, receipts, the expenses which
he incurred in holding '* confirmations, visitations," &c.,
his annual contribution to the library at Lambeth Falace,

1851.] State Bishops. 481

his fire insurances, and the repairs of his palaces. The late
Archbishop of York, in addition to the costs of *' confirma-
tions, consecrations,** &c., deemed himself entitled to
deduct from his gross revenue, certain ^' accustomable
annual payments to various institutions and schools in the
diocese/* The bishops sailed in the wake of their supe-
riors, and their returns presented similar items of deduc-
tion. The Bishop of Ely, especially, distinguished him-
self for the boldness of his method of separating net from
gross revenue. His list of deductions included, besides
the archiepiscopal claims on behalf of visitations, confir-
mations, &c., the costs of a "housekeeper at Ely Palace ;
" dinners at courts leet, and four dinners to lay clerks of
Ely Cathedral ;** *' subscriptions to schools, charities, build-
ing churches,** &c. ; " repairs of palace at Ely, and Ely
house, London, and insurance ;** *' taxes on ditto, exclusive
of personal taxes** — conscientious prelate ! — ** and water
rent,** '^ sewer rate,** and some other equally modest items.
The commissioners, albeit not very hostile to the bench,
thought that in estimating the net revenue of a bishop, the
expenses of his visitations, consecrations, and confirmations,
his contributions to diocesan charities, the wages of his ser-
vants, the repairs of his houses, &c., &c., ought not to be
deducted from his gross receipts; and their disallowance of
those and some other claims, accounts, in most cases, for
the diflference between their and the bishops* estimates of
the episcopal net incomes. This act of severity probably
kept out of the next septennial returns the expenses incur-
red by their lordships in supporting the dignity of their
stations, such as their outlay in coaches, shovel hats,
aprons, and lawn sleeves, to say nothing of the heavy cost
of keeping the vescove and the vescovine in suitable splen-
dour, expenses which undoubtedly had as fair a claim to
deduction as any of the disallowed items. ^^

* These deductions remind us that shortly after the passing of
the Reform Act, a proposal was made by a celebrated Canon resi-
dentiary to a friend of ours, to become his curate af a rectory which
entitled the curate to the highest legal salary. The proposal was
something like the following — Curacy £200 a-year, but the curate
to allow, on account, these items.

Lodgings of Curate at Rectory during the Canon's absence, £90
Board and board wages of a man-servant, who was to wear

the Canon's livery,... ... ... ... ... £50

Subscriptions in the Gallon's name to the county hospital, dec, £20

482 State Bishops. [Dec.

The table suggests other reflections, arising from the
absolute magnitude and relative disproportion of the
incomes assigned to the Anglican prelates. It is well
known that to secure efficient servants in some branches
of the public service, it is necessary to pay largely. Thus,
as a judge of learning and talent can only be found in the
ranks of a profession in which those qualities command a
high price, no salary which is mucli below his yearly
profits can tempt a successful lawyer to abandon his prac-
tice for public employment. In other words, some of
the most essential qualifications of a good judge are such
as the public can secure by purchase only. The posi-
tion, also, of a judge, and the nature of the duties which
he has to perform, are additional reasons for giving
him a high salary ; for if he were not placed, not merely
beyond the reach, but beyond even the suspicion of corrup-
tion, justice would be poisoned at its source. These con-
siderations, however, have no application whatever to the
Church. Indeed, the very dross which preserves the purity
of the ermine, dims the lustre of the mitre. The above
table proves clearly enough that large salaries do not pro-
cure, and do not in the slightest degree tend to procure, good
bishops.^ Experience, indeed, was not needed to prove
this. Piety and humility are among the first virtues which
should adorn a Christian prelate ; but they have never yet
been purchased with gold. Avarice and rapacity, worldli-
ness and covetousness, pride and ambition, on the other
hand, have never yet been eradicated by wealth, but
have rather thriven upon it. Learning in all that apper-
tains to divinity, such as a knowledge of the Hebrew,
Greek, and Latin languages, and of the sacred, patristic
and modem theological writings, ought undoubtedly to
adorn the chiefs of a Christian hierarchy ; but such quali-
fications, even if they were as much in demand as they
ought to be, might be procured at a trifling cost : for the
profit which they bring to those who jjossess them, is not
of a pecuniary character. It needs, in a word, no great
worldly prizes to secure a good bishop. He is found best
among those ^' who need but little here below, nor need
that little long/* It was not surprising, therefore, to find
that the See of Exeter could obtain quite as much zeal,
piety, and learning for its £1,500 a-year, as York or Can-
terbury could acquire with their tens or twenties of thou-
sands. Nor would it have been very absurd to conclude

1851.] • State Bishops. 483

that the services of a Howley or a Harcourt would be
liberally remunerated with the salary which was sufficient
to command those of a Philpotts !

The commissioners, however, did not arrive at this
conclusion. They joined, indeed, in the general con-
demnation of the larger episcopal salaries ; but they, at
the same time, lighted upon the notable discovery, that
the Anglican successors of the Galilean fishermen could
not efficiently discharge their duties with less than £4,000
ar-year. They, therefore, recommended that the less for-
tunate prelates should no longer be suffered to languish in
the shameful poverty in which they were shivering ; but
that a fund should be created by charging the wealthier
sees with ''such fixed annual sums as should, after due
inquiry, be determined upon, so as to leave an annual
average income' ' to

The Archbishop of Canterbury of ^15,000

The Archbishop of York 10,000

The Bishop of London 10,000

The Bishop of Durham 8,000

The Bishop of Winchester 7,000

The Bishop of Ely 5,500

The Bishop of St. Asaph andBangor 5,200

The Bishop of Worcester 5,000

The Bishop of Bath and Wells 5,000

And that out of that fund the incomes of the other bishops
should be raised to not less than £4,000, nor more than
£5,000. Vested interests, however, were respected ; and it
was therefore suggested that the proposed alterations
should not affect the revenues of any bishop who was in
possession on the fourth of March, 1836, without his con-
sent. These recommendations met with the approval of
Parliament, and by the 6 and 7 W. IV. c. 77. the Ecclesi-
astical Commissioners were appointed and incorporated,
and they were empowered to prepare schemes for carrying
their plan into effect, which schemes, when ratified by
orders in council, were to have the effect of law. The
commissioners were the two Archbishops, the Bishops of
London, Lincoln, and Gloucester, the Earl of Harrowby,
Mr. H. Hobhouse, Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, and five
cabinet ministers. In 1840 the constitution of the board
was changed ; its members were increased to fifty in nam-

484 State Bishops. ■ [Dec.

ber, of whom thirty were Churchmen, (including all the
bishops,) and twenty were laymen.

The reader will of course expect to be furnished, at the
outset, with a list of those just men who voluntarily strip-
ped themselves of the excess of their actual revenues over
the incomes which they, as well as the legislature, have
declared to be sufficient for the bishops of the sees they
now occupy. Instances are not wanting in our day, of
pecuniary sacrifices made with pure motives and for lofty
ends ; and it is not unreasonable to ask whether among
the wealthy prelates of England there have not been found
two or three, at least, to reduce their incomes to the limits
which they have assigned for their successors. Those
limits are not very narrow, and the sacrifice would have
involved nothing more than some of the pomps and vani-
ties which the Church Catechism teaches them to renounce.
But, alas ! we can give no such list : for, reader, there are
no such bishops. Not even one such just man was to be
found upon the spiritual bench. It may be very true that
they often preach unto others the worthlessness of worldly
wealth \ but to practise as well as to preach contempt for
riches is a double duty which, they may think, religion
does not require of them, or political economy sanction ;
and as they are bound to do the one, they may be entitled,
in their opinion, to throw, by a judicious division of
labour, the burden of the other upon their hearers.

The negotiations and correspondence which ensued
between the board and the bishops upon the subject of
their incomes appear in the returns which Sir Benjamin
Hall moved for m June, 1850, but which were not laid
upon the table of the House of Commons until June, 1851.
It is not now necessary to inquire into the cause of this delay;
but if it be attributable in any measure to a fear on the
part of the commissioners, that the publication of the epis-
copal transactions might not tend to elevate the reverend
bench in the public estimation, the delay was intelligible
enough. Certainly such a fear, if it existed, was well
founded. The warmest admirer of the Establishment, the
most strenuous zealot of the right divine of the Anglican
episcopacy^ the^ staunchest supporter of all institutions
because they exist, will rise with sorrow from the perusal
of these returns, unless, indeed, it be part of his creed that
bishops may act and feel as less holy men may not,— unless
he be of opinion that the love of money and the jealousy

1851.] State Bishops. 485

of a neighbour should be among the moral attributes, and
the arts of overreaching and sharp practice, among the
intellectual accomplishments of an Anglican prelate. Of
anything approaching to self-denial or self-sacrifice, of a
preference of the Church's advancement to their own inte-
rests,— of any act or feeling, in short, which springs from a
purer source, than the lowest species of self-love, the corres-
pondence of the bishops with the commissioners exhibits
not a trace. It shows that they were endowed with a
lively sense of the pecuniary interest of themselves and
their order ; and that they displayed, when pounds, shillings,
and pence were in issue, quite as eager a solicitude for
those treasures which are laid up where moth and rust
corrupt, and thieves break in and steal, as for any which
they might hoard in a world secure against such ravages.
The blue book is, in short, a faithful picture of the struggles
of the wealthy prelates under the process ot shearing, and
of the scrambles of the poorer ones for the spoil.

Take, for instance, the case of the Bishop of Durham,
better known as the author of Maltby's Thesaurus, of
which he also published an abridgment. It affords a
curious example, first, of episcopal proficiency in negotia-
tion, and next, of episcopal morality.

The See of Durham, when Dr. Maltby was elevated to it,
was within the clutches of the new act. The commissioners
were about to impose upon it, in compliance with the provi-
sions of the statute, such a charge as they should determine
upon due inquiry, to be sufficient^ to leave the new bishop
neither more nor less than a net income of £8,000 a-year.
They had estimated, from the returns of the preceding
incumbent, the average net income of the diocese at
JE22,185, 83. 8d., and if that estimate were assumed to be
correct, the amount of the charge would have been
c£l4,185, 8s. 8d. Dr. Maltby, however, did not like this
aLarming sum, and he determined, therefore, to assist the
commissioners in the *' due inquiry,'^ which they were
required to make respecting the amount of the charge.
That a bishop should have under-estimated his income in
returning it to the commissioners, was probable enough, but
that he should have over-rated it was neither very probable
nor very credible. Dr. Maltby, howevei*, had some hun-
dreds at stake, at the very least, and he undertook to prove
this arduous proposition to the satisfaction of the board.
His first step for that purpose was to send them a '' sup-

486 Slate Bishopx. [Dec.

plementary statement of the average amount of certain out-
goings and charities at Auckland castle, &o., heretofore
annually paid by the Bishop of Durham/* which " out-
going and charities'* had been, it was suggested, most
unaccountably omitted in the late bishop's return to the
commissioners.

The first three sets of items comprised in this "supple-
mentary account,** consist of payments for repairs, (<£l,412
2s. 5d.), agencies, (£1,179, 18s. 6d.), and taxes and cesses,
(£251, 14s. 6d.) ; and respecting them no other comment is
necessary, than that whicn we find appended to the account
in the following words : —

" The three first totals for repairs, agencies, and taxes,
minus £l28. Is., are comprehended under their respective
heads, in the seven years returns of the preceding bishop,
(No. 1, § 10), and must therefore be deducted &om the
total of this supplementary statement. (Secretary.)**

The following items, which are immediately succeeded,
in amusing juxtaposition, by one of fifteen pounds for the
chapel at Auckland Castle, also figure in the supplemen-
tary account.

PARKS, MANORS, AND MOORS.

Auckland park and gamekeeper

Merrington gamekeeper

Two permanent watchers at Auckland

Weardale gamekeeper

Two permanent watchers on the moors ..
Additional watchers during the grouse season ...
Sundry extra expenses attending this department

. . • •• • •

... ...

•.• • • .

... ...

£ t.

d.

101 0

6

58 6

6

78 0

0

80 0

0

80 0

0

172 15

0

40 0

0

£610 2 0

Whether the last item covered the cost of the cold fowls,
whisky and dog biscuit, without which no orthodox sports-
man ventures forth on the 12th of August, or whether it
was devoted exclusively to " Pigou's highly glazed ** and
Ely's cartridges, are questions upon which tiie *' supple-
mentary account' ' leaves the human race in painful uncer-
tainty. To those who are more familiar than we pretend
to be with the different streams of expenditure into which
the incomes of English prelates flow, six hundred and tea
pounds may perhaps appear no extravagant outlay for the
maintenance of episcopal preserves and kennels ; but they

1851.] State Bishops. 487

will probably think, with the ecclesiastical commissioners,
that those expenses are not more essential to the discharge
of the episcopal functions, and are not fitter subjects of de-
duction from a bishop^s gross receipts, than the costs of his
visitations and consecrations.

Having failed to show that the past income had been
over-estimated, the bishop next addressed himself to pro-
ving that the future revenues were likely to suffer; and
for this purpose he put into requisition the services of his sec-
. retary, Mr. Douglas Gresley. In a letter which the latter
addressed to his employer, and which was duly forwarded
to the commissioners, it was shown that " the probable
amount of the income of the see of Durham during the
current year, from February last (1836), to February 1837/'
would not exceed £11,740, 2s. Sd. The matter to be as-
certained, unfortunately, was not what might probably be
the amount which should be actually received in hand be-
tween two days, but what was the average net annual in-
come produced by the possessions of the see, taking one
year with another. Mr. Gresley's letter, therefore, was to
say the least of it, wholly beside the question. And so
thought the commissioners ; for we find their secretary, Mr.
C. K. Murray, a couple of months afterwards, transmitting
to the bishop, for his consideration, certain " calculations
of the average revenues of the See of Durham, made from
returns, and other communications received from Mr.
Douglas Gresley,'' and informing his Lordship, that the
commissioners, assuming Mr. Gresley's calculations to be
correct, estimated the gross annual mcome of the see at
not less than £23,800. — (Returns, p. 29.) In the same
letter Mr. Murray observed that the payments which
the returns of 1836 claimed to deduct from gross receipts,
must be reduced by four items, amounting to £2,371,
1 2s. 4d. for repairs, agencies, and taxes ; and that the net in-
come, so far from having been over-estimated by the late bi-
shop, would appear to be £21,605 6s. lOd., from which, if the
Parliamentary income of £8000 were subtracted, £13,605,
6s. lOd. would remain to be paid to the commissioners. He
did not conclude without announcing, that the sporting
outgoings and charities, which had been so carefully
enumerated in the supplementary account, could not be
allowed as deductions.

The bishop, however, was not to be thus defeated. He
demanded further investigation, and it was granted. Mr.

488 State Bishops. [Dec

Gresley was examined upon interrogatories, and the sum-
mary of the information derived from him through that
means gave the bishop an advantage of some £l70 over
Mr. Murray's estimate. The committee, however, attach-
ed little importance to Mr. Gresley and his calculations.
Notwithstanding his evidence, they resolved *' that the an-
nual amount to be contributed from the property and
revenues of the see, so as to leave the bishop an average
annual income of £8,000, should be fixed at 14,000!
Matters looked unpromising, and a man of average con-
stancy might, under similar circumstances, have been
forgiven for abandoning even a better cause. But the
bishop resolved to die hard, and his secretary was once
more brought upon the field to restore the episcopal for-
tunes. Another examination followed. Mr. Gresley was
asked about the fines payable upon the renewal of leases
of lead mines ; about the average price of lead ; about
agents and their fees, and surveyors and their salaries ;
about the effect of railways upon the price of coals ; de om-
nibus rebus, in a word, et quibusdam aliis. But the com-
mittee were inexorable. They resolved that " nothing had
transpired during this examination calculated to vary their
previous opinion as to the amount of the contribution to be
made by the Bishop of Durham, nor to occasion any fear
that the bishop would be put to any serious inconvenience if
he were to make the first half-yearly payment in January
next'' (1837)..

The expedient, then, of leading the commissioners into
a miscalculation, either by impeaching the past returns, or
foreboding future depreciation, had finally failed ; and a
charge of £14,000 a-year was hanging over the bishop's
head as the penalty of his defeat. To succumb under it
would probably have been the fate of one less fertile in re-
sources than Dr. Maltby. But his Lordship's ingenuity
was not yet exhausted. He commenced a fresh campaign
with new tactics. He undertook to persuade the commis-
sioners, not that their charge would not leave him £8,000
a-year, but that £8,000 a-year was too little for the succes-
sor of princes palatine. *^ It is obviously more difficult
for me," says his Lordship, *^ coming immediately after
prelates of such vast expenditure, to control mine within
due limits and within a certain time, than it will be for
those who come after me. In the very numerous and large
subscriptions and charities^ if I diminish one half it may

1851.] State BMops. 489

appear mean, and I must do so, and yet incur a consi-
derable outlay. For instance, the late bishop gave fifty
pounds, or guineas, per annum to the sons of the clergy
here, including what he gave at the anniversary ; I believe
he gave the same to the Newcastle Infirmary. Again,
the necessary expenses of keeping up this castle and place
have not been taken into due consideration. With all
my anxiety to reduce expense I cannot yet do it to the
extent of my wishes ; and I am satisfied 1 could not live
here'' (Auckland Castle) " even in the compatively'moder-
ate way I do, and support a house in town, with the neces-
sary costs of transporting my household to and fi^o, if the
commissioners do not furnish me with at least a clear
unembarrassed income of «£8,000 per annum, and that
will not be, unless the veiy uncertain and fluctuating nature
of the tenures from which it is derived be taken fairly
and fully into account.'' — Returns, &c., p. 40.

'* The clear and unembarrassed income" here modestly
demanded, was a net income of £8,000 plus^ ample means
to meet *Wery numerous and large subscriptions," and
" the necessary expenses of keeping up" Auckland Castle,
and to enable the reverend prelate, further, to support
a house in town, and to transport his household to and
from it. And in addition to making him these allow-
ances, the commissioners were required — the old story — to
take fairly and fully into account the sadly fluctuating
nature of the sources from which the income was to be
derived. The bishop was evidently a man of the most
charitable disposition ; but he wished to be supplied by the
public with the means of indulging so noble a taste, and
had no fancy for contributing to its gratification out of his
own miserable net income of £8,000 a-year. He desired
to live like a gentleman, and, good family man, he wished
to have his household about him upon all occasions ; but
he thought it hard that a Christian prelate should be
expected by a country which so shamefully underpaid him,
to Keep his palaces in repair, and to pay for his own and
his family's railway tickets. These demands, indeed,
amounted to a proposal that the commissioners should
perform the O'Connell feat of driving a coach and six
through an act of Parliament. For the 3 and 4 W. IV. c.
77, had fixed the net income of the bishops of Durham at
£8,000, and in directing the commissioners to impose on

VOL. XXXI.-No. LXII. 12

490 State BUhopa. [Dec.

the see a charge which would leave a surplus of neither
more nor less than that income annually, had limited their
duties to the single point of ascertaining what the amount
of that charge should bo. To increase or to diminish the
charge on the ground that <£8,000 a-year was too much or
too little, after Parliament had declared it to be neither
the one nor the other, was, on the part of the commission-
ers, to disregard the letter and the spirit of the law, and to
usurp a power possessed by the legislature alone. To
appeal to the commissioneys against the decision of Par-
liament was, on the part of the bishop, a breach of con-
tract,— for he had accepted the bishopric upon the Parlia-
mentary terms, — and an unfair attempt to induce the
commissioners to swerve from their duty. However, his
remonsti'anccs were not altogether without effect. The
commissioners, notwithstanding the two resolutions of
their committee, fixed the charge at £13,000, which was
reduced to £11,200, by a transfer to the diocese of Ripon,
of estates worth £1,800 a-year, which liad belonged to
Durham.

** In coming to this decision,^* writes Mr. Murray, " the
commissioners have taken into consideration the unavoid-
able expenses which must be incurred by the first bishop
who succeeds to the see of Durham under its altered con-
dition, and if they had now been called upon to fix the
payment to be made by a future bishop of the see, they
would probably have felt themselves bound to name a
higher sum.'* — Returns, p. 42.

The bishop might have been satisfied with this conces-
sion. But he had not yet done with the commissioners.
Finding that a parade of his burdens, in the way of chari-
ties and travelling expenses, had created an impression in
his favour, he returned once more to the charge. He pro-
tested that the proposed sum had been estimated with a
very imperfect knowledge of, " above all, the multiplied
and increasing claims upon a Bishop of Durham, from
the prodigious numbers and spiritual wants of the people/*
(Retnrns, cfec, p. 43.) But the commissioners turned a
deaf ear to this new suggestion ; and they were probably
flattering themselves that they had, at last, got rid of Dr.
Maltby, when they were favoured with " an accurate state-'
ment of the revenue of the see for the present and the next
two years." Tliis document, which emanated from the
prophetic pen of Mr. Greslcy, estimated the average net

1851.] State Bishops. 491

annual income of the then present and two future years at
£20^898 lis. lid., and showed, therefore, that the bishop's
income would only be a £100 short of £8,000 a-year ; — a
prospect which was so much more satisfactory to the bishop
than he expected, that he " did not feel called upon to
make any further objection to the arrangements proposed
by the board.'* (Returns, p. 45.) It is pleasant to find that,
notwithstanding his Lordship's unwillingness to protract
the contest, he did not think it right to leave the commis-
sioners in ignorance of the fact that they were robbing him
of a £100 a-year, without an opportunity of making resti-
tution. The commissioners, however, did not take the hint.
The negotiation was not re-opened, and the unhappy Dr.
Maltby found himself turned adrift upon the wide world,
charged with the payment of a sum which the commission-
ers believed would leave him only £8,000 a-year to live
upon, without any perquisites or pickings whatever, and
without any other purse than his own to dip into, for suiv
plying his contributions to the charities of his diocese,
keeping a roof over his head, and providing himself and
his family with the requisite facilities for locomotion.

"And so Dr. Maltby does not much like his abridged
Thesaurus,'' exclaimed his witty brother, Charles James
of London, during this protracted contest for an odd hun-
dred pounds or two. He little knew when he uttered the
joke, how much the next edition would be increased
in size. The average net annual income was expected
to be £8,000. Its average amount irom 1837 to 1843,
both inclusive was £11,793 4s. yearly. The bishop, there-
fore, was overpaid by .the sum of £3,793 4s. annually.
In consequence of this discovery, which the second sep-
tennial returns brought to light, the select committee on
episcopal incomes recommended that the charge upon the
see should be raised to £l3,750, but the board, ** having
received and considered a statement from the Bishop of
Durham upon the revenue of his see," resolved " that the
prospective charge upon Durham should be £13,200."
(Returns, p. 241.) What the purport of this mysterious
statement was, does not appear ; but it may be inferred
ifrom the effect which it produced, that the bishop did not
paint the future in very glowing colours. He received
the announcement of the prospective charge with equa-
nimity. ** On the whole," he writes, ^' I do not think that
I ought to object to the prospective charge of £13,200 upon

492 State Bishops. [Dec.

the See of Durham. (Returns, p. 242.) And, indeed, he had
little reason to object. Even if the additional couple of
thousand pounds by which the charge had been augment-
ed, had been made leviable upon him, he would have had
no just cause of complaint. I3ut the secret of the reverend
prelate's Christian resignation lies in the word " prospec-
tive.'* The new burden was not to aflfect him, out was
only to come into operation upon the next avoidance of
the see ; and a bishop who had desired to purchase a
reputation for charity with the money of his colleagues,
might well hope to acquire a character for disinterested-
ness at the expense of nis successors.

Fortune is said to be capricious ; but she proves her rule
by exceptions, for she shows eternal constancy to some of
her favourites. Among these may be reckoned the Bishop
of Durham. The last septennial returns represent him as
still basking in the sunshine of her smiles. It appears
that, notwithstanding Mr. Gresley's desponding anticipa-
tions in 1846, (Returns, p. 241,) of a decrease, " on the
most moderate computation," of £1,000 a-year, in respect
of colliery way leaves alone, to say nothing of other failing
sources of income, the net revenues of the see, after
deducting the commissioners' £11,200 and other legiti-
mate items, has averaged, during the last seven years,
(1844 'to 1851,) £15,586, 16s. annually, or £7,586, IGs.
over and above the income which Parhament had fixed
for the bishop, and for which the bishop had agreed to
undertake the duties of his office. During fourteen years
Dr. Maltby has received £79,000 more than was due to
him. He was, it is true, legally entitled to receive the
money, for the legislature had left the property of the see
in his possession and control ; and he was not compella-
ble by any court of law or equity to pay the commissioners
more than £11,200. Therefore he not only received, but
kept the money. And if there be no difference between a
legal and a moral obligation, the bishop was morally, as
well as legally, right. The legislature, unlearned in epis-
copal morality, had presumed that because a man was a
bishop, he must therefore necessarily be a man of honour ;
and consequently, in promulgating their scheme for a
new distribution of the episcopal funds, they were more
solicitous to express their intentions, than to provide
an adequate machinerv for carrying them into effect.
They knew that when the terms of a bargain are clearly

1851] State Bishops. 493

understood, honourable men do not take advantage of
technical difficulties to extricate themselves from it ; and
they probably thought that a very stringent method of
effectuating their plan might have appeared to betray dis-
trust of the reverend body, or at all events, to be deroga-
tory to their dignity : for it was notorious that the bishops
of the Established Church, not from pride, of course,
but only from that species of humility which apes it,
scorned to be paid by salaries.

The intention, tnerefore, of Parliament was made
abundantly clear. They desired that the Bishop of Durham
should have £8,000 a-year, and that the surplus revenues
of the see should go to the commissioners. To spare the
bishop the humiliation of being a salarie, they left him in
possession of the property ; to avoid degrading him into a
steward, they did not impose upon him the duty of account-
ing for the surplus profits, eo nomine, but only required him
to pay them over to the commissioners under the name of a
charge, the amount of which was to be equal to the esti-
mated surplus profits. When the bishop found that those
profits had been greatly underrated, was it not his duty,
as a man of honour, at once to pay over the excess ? Should
he not, at the very least, have proposed a fresh valuation,
and a re-adjustment of the charge ? Is it too much to
expect from the sense of honour of a Christian bishop that
he should not keep money to which he has no better title
than a mistake, or that he should instantly rectify that
mistake which gives him a legal title to money morally be-
longing to another ? Dr. Maltby did nothing of the kind.
He simply pocketed the whole surplus. When the com-
missioners, at the end of the first septennial period, recon-
sidered and increased the amount of the charge prospec-
tively, he might at least have consented, or even demanded
that it should be imposed upon himself as well as upon his
successors. But the bishop viewed the matter in a different
light ; and he has now the satisfaction of feeling that he is
richer by £79,000 than he would have been, if the spirit
of his bargain with Parliament had been observed. If the
annual charge had left him less than £8,000 a-year, it
may be inferred, upon episcopal authority, that he would
not have suffered for fourteen years in silent submissive-
ness. He would have proclaimed his loss as loudly and as
soon as the Bishop of Ely; and probably, like that reverend
prelate, he would have refused to pay the commissioners

494 State Bishops. [Dec.

one farthing. Or if that undignified and illegal course has
been repugnant to him, he would not have been slow to re-
collect that he had a seat in the House of Lords, and to
appeal to that favourable tribunal for justice. Our laws are
not those of the Medes and Persians ; and acts to amend
acts are no unusual phenomena in the legislative world.
But this contingency, had it ever been as probable as it
is now remote, aflfbrds no better justification for his con-
duct, than the risk of being^ cheated does of cheating. The
question, in either event, of ,'gain or of loss by the ar-
rangement, is the same : what was the spirit of the bar-
gain ? The spirit is obvious enough ; and it must not
be confounded with, nor yet sought to be elicited
from, the machinery adopted for carrying it into execu-
tion. .

It may be said that Parliament, in requiring the pay-
ment of a fixed charge, and not of the surplus profits,
designedly offered an inducement to the bishops to give due
attention to the management of the property of the Church
by holding out to them all the surplus beyond the charge
as a reward for their exertions. But if bishops are to be
measured by the high standard wherewith they would de-
sire the world to measure them, this scheme was unneces-
sary, for the end which it was expected to attain was secure
without it. For surely the episcopal bench would be the
last to admit that they could not be brought without the
hope of pecuniary profit, to protect the property committed
to their charge, however sacred were the trust ; or that
they had, in 1836, sunk so low in the estimation of King,
Lords, and Commons, that such a stimulus was considered
essential to keep them to the performance of their duty.
But, further, independently of the absence of all expi-essed
intention on the subject, it may be doubted, from the in-
aptness of the means to the end, whether this object was
in the contemplation of Parliament when they adopted the
fixed-charge scheme. For, if the bishops be no better
than other men, but are subject to the same influences, and
are actuated by the same motives as operate upon the rest
of frail humanity, the plan was positively calculated to in-
jure the property of the Church by inciting prelates to
improve their incomes at its expense. A well-disposed
bishop, of average honesty, and attachment to his church,
would carefully collect the yearly ijrofits^ of his .see, and
exercise due d[iligence in protecting it against all encroach-

1851.] State Bishops. 495

meats. But a bishop who is permitted to appropriate all
that he can raise, beyond a fixed charge, from the diocesan
property, is exposed to the strongest temptation to anticipate
for his own personal purposes the future income of the see ;
and unless he rises much above the conventional morality
of his order, and respects the rights of those who are to
follow him, more than his predecessors have respect-
ed his, he will, beyond doubt, fcill into the tempta-
tion. ^

This plea, then, will not avail Dr. Maltby better than
any other. He appears to have considered that he was
playing a game of hazard with the commissioners, that
^ all means were fair to allure fortune to his side, and that
when he won the ^ame he was perfectly entitled to pocket
the stake. But even if it had been tne intention of Par-
liament or the necessary consequence of its enactment, —
if the lax morals or the inadvertent blunder of a body
of laymen, had forced a Christian prelate into a gamb-
ling transaction, should he not have hesitated to appropri-
ate the loss of his less fortunate antagonists ? Dr. Maltby
resolved such doubts in the negative ; and he did not dis-
dain the spoil. It may be said, indeed, that he only took
money to throw it into the poor box ; and a certain osten-
tatious parade of charitable donations which accompanies
his first septennial returns may be triumphantly cited to
prove it. If that account of his lordship^s charities, how-
ever, be anything more than the merest trumpet sound
in the synagogue to have ^^glory of men,^' it is, at best, but
evidence of a conscience not altogether at peace with it-
self. This, at least, is clear, that even if those donations
had exceeded, instead of falling immeasurably short of
what the bishop received beyond his £8,000 a-year, they
would not have proved that wrong was right, but only that
the wrong was sought to be atoned for. The bishop is
without defence : but why should he be without consola-
tion? They may laugh who win: and a clear gain of
^9,000 may perhaps confer somewhat of that serenity to
the mind which is more commonly derived from the con-
sciousness of right. Dr. Maltby may, perhaps, hardly feel
able to meet the snarls of an ill-natured critic, with the
answer of the Roman,

** Virtute med mo involve :'*

but he may at least exclaim^ with the Athenian of old^

496 State Bishops. [Dec.-

when weighed down under the double weight of popular
opinion and bursting money bags,

" Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arc&.*'

And let him also rest assured, that no bishop can
henceforth hope to immortalize himself ty similar means.
The commissioners have thought that one such case as his
is quite enough for the honour of the Church ; and accord-
ingly, to prevent the recurrence of a similar transaction,
an order of Council was gazetted on the 19th of October
last, which requires that all prelates appointed since the
1st of January, 1848, shall deliver half-yearly accounts of
their receipts, and that when these excee(^ their Farli&-
mentary income, they shall pay the surplus to the com-
missioners.

The Bishop of Durham was not the only prelate who

fot the better of the commissioners. The Bishop of St.
)avid's was to receive £4,500 a-year. He received in the
last seven years not £31,500, but £39,000. The Bishop
of Nor\yich, with an allowance of a similar income, re-
ceived, in the same space of time, £39,571. The Bishops
of Oxford and Salisbury have also received more than tne
amount of their Parliamentary incomes. The case of the
Bishop of Worcester is still worse. He was appointed in
1841, and the income of his see was fixed at £5,000 a^
year. The commissioners had in 1837 estimated the net
income of the diocesan property at £7,300, and had, there-
fore, fixed the charge at £2,300. In 1844 the bishop be-
sought very earnestly for a reduction of this charge to
£1,500, but the result of a protracted negotiation brought
him only an alleviation of £lOO a-year, by which amount the
charge was reduced, owing to a clerical error in the scheme
and order ; but so far were the commissioners from counte-
nancing the notion that the see had been overcharged
that they declared that upon the next avoidance of the see
it should pay £2,450 annually. And the last septennial
returns show, that instead of overburthcning it, they made
a very inadequate estimate of its productive powers ; for
Dr. Pepys received during that period £6,500 a-year on an
average, instead of his Parliamentary £5,000. Not one
of these men has made restitution. One and all they have
appropriated what accident and mistake threw in their

3861.] State Bishops. 497

'way, and what the law was not strong enough to compel
them to deliver up to the rightful owners.

Passing, for a moment, to smaller fry, we may cull
here and there some pretty specimens of episcopal
virtues. The See of Chichester was one of those whose
revenues had been deemed inadequate for the support of
its incumbents. In 1837, the commissioners voted that its
income should in future be <£4,000 per annum, and that, to
effectuate this, the sum of «£450 should be paid yearly to
the bishop of the see. His Lordship should have felt
some gratitude for this bounty, and have rejoiced that
the church of Chichester was so decently honoured by
Parliament in the person of its bishop. But his only feeling
was one of disappointment — not altogether unmingled
with jealousy. • His expectations had been unduly excited
by sundry reports which, however, when investigated,
proved to be of the vaguest and most unsubstantial kind
(see Returns 76); and the difference between the ex-
pected and the actual sums created a sense of wrong and
repining, in which all thankfulness for the boon conferred
was completely merged.

^ " I understood,^^ he says to the secretary of the commis-
sioners, " from several quarters upon my appointment to
the bishopric, that the income under the new arrangement
would be £4,500 per annum, and the experience I have since
had has given me the strongest reason to believe, that even
in the view of the commissioners, it ought not to be less. I
find many expenses of hospitality and charity entailed
uvon the bishop by ancient w^o^^, wnich it would be impossi-
ble to give up without injury to the establishment, and
very difficult to support with the means proposed. Amongst
the former are large public dinners given in the autumn to
the gentlemen and clergy of the county, at each of which
fifty persons are entertained."— Returns, p. 76.

How his predecessors had managed in times which knew
not ecclesiastical commissioners, to entail upon themselves
and their successors hospitalities and charities so burden-
some, that a bishop of Chichester of the present day could
not hold his ground under their weight, even with the ad-
dition of <£450 a-year to his income ; or how far '^ large
public dinners given in the autumn to the gentlemen and
clergy of the county, at which fifty persons are enter-
tained,'' were essential to the duties or character of a Chris-
tian prelate, are questions which the late Bishop of Chi-

49 8 State Bishops. ' [Dec.

Chester did not stop to ask himself, or, at all events, to pro- *
pound to others. But he had another and very powerful
motive for demanding at least £4,600 per annum. Truth,
like murder, will out: the bishop was unable to conceal
that it was not so much an abstract love for jollitv and
church building which made him plead so earnestly for
the odd £300, as jealousy of his colleague of Ripon.

" It is not pleasing to me to compare my own situation
with that of any other bishop,^' he says ; and the reader
may judge wliether the comparison displeased his lordship
from the invidiousness which proverbially characterizes aU
comparisons, or simply from the results to which it led in
his case, *'but having learned that the income of the Bishop ^
of Ripon has been fixed at £4,500 per annum, I am compelt
ed in justice to myself as well as to my successors, respect-
fully, though earnestly, to press upon the commissioners my
conviction, that there is nothing in the circumstances of
that diocese which ought to entitle it to so great an advan-
tage over the ancient see of Chichester.^^— ^Returns, 75.

How .could a board, composed chiefly of his brethren
resist such an appeal ? How could they leave a brother a
prey to the rodent passion ? To a layman, a wholesome
reproof for fostering so base a feeling might have been
administered. But an episcopal patient required more
tender treatment. So a couple of hundred pounds^ were
appUed as a palliative, if not as a cure. The Commissioners
passed a vote that £4,200 was the fitting income for a bishop
of '* the ancient see of Chichester ;*' and to increase his
revenue to that amount, they awarded him £650 arvear.
It may be added that the next returns showed sucn an
improvement in the revenues of the diocese, that the
annual contribution was, in 1846, reduced prospectively, —
that is, upon the next avoidance of the see, — to £l50.

Dr. Otter was not the only prelate who demanded an
increase of income for the purpose of maintaining a name
for hospitality and charitableness without personal sacri-
fice ; nor yet the only one who paled with envy in the
presence of a brother's good fortune. " The poverty of
this part of the country, ' says the Honourable as wdl
as Right Reverend Dr. Percy, Bishop of Carlisle, " causes
numerous demands upon the bishop ; nor could I ever
understand why the bishop of this diocese was not as
well entitled to an income of £5,000 per annum, as
Rochester, Salisbury, and others/'— Returns, 277.

1851.] State Bishops. 499

The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol was even more
ambitious. He could not brook the thought of a colleague
beine better housed than himself.

*^ In regard to the intended purchase of a house/* he
fiays, " I, of course, expect that the sums arising from the
compensation and the sale of the site of the late palace
at Bristol^" will be increased from the episcopal fund to an
amount as large as may in anv other case be considered
by the commissioners to be requisite for an episcopal resi-
dence. Should the expenses of the purchase of a house
by the commissioners be less than that amount, the sur-
plus will be expended in adding to or improving the place.
Should it exceed the sum allotted, the excess may be
defrayed by money borrowed under the authority of the
commissioners to be paid by instalments, in forty years (!)
from the income of the see/* — Returns, 139.

If the Board did not comply fully with the spirit of this
request, they were at least pretty handsome in their
dealings with the bishop. They expended £23,000 in
erecting him a palace, which not only gratified his love
of comfort and display, but also gave him a pretext for
fresh claims upon the purse. When the commissioners
proposed to charge the diocese with an annual payment of
i5l,400, the bishop, terrified and indignant at this "mon-
strous scheme,** — to use his own gentle words, — endea-
voured to arrest the blow by brandishing their own recent
acts in their face. He reminded them that the see had
'* now the great additional charge of keeping up a new
and very expensive residence, which circumstance verv
materially alters the pecmiiary position of its holder.
** In one respect,** he adds, **the commissioners will be
undoing then* own work. Unless future bishops of Glouces-
ter and Bristol be possessed of considerable private for-
tunes, it will be impossible for them to keep up the Sta-
pleton residence, under the proposed diminution of the
see.** — Returns, 309.

The bishop was one of the commissioners appointed in
1836 ; and after the repeated decisions of the board that
the expenses of maintaining and repairing the epis-
copal residences were not legitimate items of deduction
from gross, in ascertaining net, revenue, he must have
known that the commissioners could not, in the impartial

* Burnt down during the Bristol Riots in 1831.

500 State Bishops. [Dec.

execution of their duty, suffer their estimate of the sum
which the see should pay, to be aflfected by the ** great
additional charge'* which he thus pressed upon their
notice. Had they been guiltless, therefore, of the Staple-
ton job, the bishop would hardly have ventured to sug-
gest a departure in his favour, from the principle upon
which they had hitherto acted. But they had built the
house ; and that circumstance afforded an argumentumad
hominem^ of which the bishop was not slow to avail him-
self. " The commissioners will be undoing their own
work !'* Political gratitude is said to consist in a lively
sense of future favours ; and episcopal thankfulness seems
to have no greater tendency to retrospection, except
where the past favour may be employed as a weapon
against the donor.

But this bishop has other and stronger clsdms to public
notice. It is to the Horjfield case that Dr. Monk owes
whatever celebrity has attached to his name; and not-
witstanding the very general attention which that trans-
action recently attracted, both in and out of Parliament^
a brief notice of it will probably not be deemed out of place
in this paper. To unlearned readers, a few preliminary
remarks upon the law and practice relative to church leases
may be useful, in order that the conduct of the bishop may
be appreciated. Anciently a bishop could not dispose of
lands of his see for a longer period than that of his own
life, unless he obtained the consent of the dean and chap-
ter to the alienation. Upon his death all leases and other
interests created by him terminated ; and his successor
found himself in possession of property unencumbered and
unwasted. With the consent of the dean and chapter^
however, a bishop could not only grant valid leases for any
length of time, but could dispose of the lands of the see
altogether. From this state of the law " not only great
decay of divine service,^' says Lord Coke, " but dilapida-
tions and other inconveniences ensued.*' This unrestncted
dominion does not, indeed, appear to have led generally, to
the dissipation of the property of the Church before the Re-
formation. Wealth accumulated rather than melted awajr
in the hands of a corporation of men who, vowed to celi-
bacy, were exempted from the claims of oflFspring, and
knew, in the main, no stronger, certainly no more lasting
attachment, than that espirit de corps which binds man to
the brotherhood or caste of which he is a member. Bat

1851.] State Bishops. 601

with the Reformation came new men, with different mo-
tives of action, and different standards of judgment. It
was in their families, and not in their corporation, that
their affections were centred, about whicn their cares
and hopes turned ; and the property which had been held
formerly in the quasi corporate hands of sonless men as a
deposit for a sacred purpose, came soon to be regarded by-
family men as the rewards of individual services, and as a
provision for the advancement of children. To put an end
to the abuses nientioned by Lord Coke, the I. Eliz. c. 19,
was passed, which invalidated all alienations whatsoever of
diocesan possessions for more than twenty-one years or
three lives: and to this enactment it is not improbably
owing, that episcopal property, instead of being now the
cause of scandal to the Church,^ did not lon^ since pass
altogether away from its dominion ; for the reformed
prelates soon learned to turn to their own advantage the
provisions of another statute which had been passed, it
would appear, not so much for the purpose of aggrandiz-
ing them, as of relieving their incautious lessees. This
Act, the 32 Hen. VIII. c. 28, began by reciting that
great numbers of the king's subjects, after taking leases

of farms, and " given and paid great fines and been

at great costs and charges as well in and about great re-
parations and buildings upon their said ferms, as otherwise

.. ..-.yet after the deaths or resignations of their lessors

have been and be daily and with great cruelty expulsed

by the successors of their said lessors to the great

impoverishment and, in a manner, utter undoing of the
said formers,'' and then proceeded to enact, "for reforma-
tion whereof," that all leases granted by a bishop should
be valid, provided, among other requisites, the term did
not exceed twenty-one years, or three lives, and that the
rent reserved was as much as, or more than that " accus-
tomably yeelden." Thenceforth bishops universally avail-
ed themselves of this power, and ahnost invariably leased
at the rent " accustomably yeelden."

In letting lands, one of two courses is open to the owner
who is in possession of them : — he may either let them
at the best rent which they will fetch in the market, or, in
consideration of a sum paid down in advance, at a lower
rent. The lower the rent, the larger, it is obvious, will be
the sum thus paid down. By adopting the former course,
the land owner obtains year by year the full annual value

502 Slate Bishops. [Dec-

of the property ; by the latter, he anticipates a portion of
that value, and submits, for the sake of an immediate
advantage, to a corresponding loss during the remainder
of the time for which the lease has to run. If that period be
short and he be young, the prospective loss will probably
fall upon him alone ; but the longer the term and the older
the lessor, the greater the probability that the burden will
fall upon his successor. If he be so absolutely owner of
the land that he might sell it, or give it awa:^', or make
ducks and drakes of it, those upon whom it devolves
after his death, have no right to complain of the grant
of such leases ; for he who trenches upon his own future
resources only, is open to no graver imputation than
that of imprudence and recklessness. But it is clear that
the more solicitous he is of the welfare of his successors,
the more he will be inclined to lease the land at its best
annual rent, and the less he will be induced by a bribe, to
impose upon them the necessity ot accepting less than it is
annually worth. If, however, he be a mere life tenant of
the lands, if he have the usufruct merely, by what name shall
an act, which enriches him at the expense of the next
comer, be designated ? It may be added, that to prevent
such an appropriation by a tenant for life, lawyers of
old conceived that the remainder man was eflfectually
protected bjr the introduction in the leasing powers
which were inserted in family settlements, of a stipula-
tion that the lease, to be valid, should reserve the accus^
tomed rent at least ; but the conveyancers of modern
times, more wary, or more alive to the expansive nafwr^
of the value of landed property, invariably require that
the best rent shall be paid, and that no fine shall oe taken.
The bishops of the Established Church did not fail to
discover that for a twenty-one years' lease at the rent
" accustomably yeelden,'' in the reign of Henry VIII., a
tenant would willingly pay a considerable sum of money, or
fine, as it is technically called. And having a legal right
to grant such leases, and to accept such bribes for so doing,
they did not stop to inquire whether the measure of justice
which they were meting to their successors, was precisely
that which they would desire to have measured out to
themselves. Do unto others as ill as others have done
unto you, became their reading: of the second great com-
mandment. Apres nous le deluge, was their principle of
conduct. Between their own pecuniary interests and the

1851.] Siate Bishops. 503

moral claims of others, they did not balance ; and down
to the present hour they have exercised their legal power
to its fullest extent for their own individual advantage,
and to the great injury of the property of the Establishment.
The fines received for new leases at the old rents have
now come to form a very considerable, nay, the most
considerable portion of the episcopal incomes. From
1844 to 1850 they amounted to £636,387. But this
systematic rapacity has not been blessed. *' There is
little doubt,'* say the episcopal and capitular commission-
ers, " that under a different plan of management, the
estates might have produced a much larger income for the
Church, and, at the same time, be held upon a tenure
more acceptable to the lessees.''

The manor of Horfield had been leased in this custom-
ary way. It belongs to the diocese, and is situated in
the immediate neighbourhood of the city of Bristol. It
consists partly of lands let at rack rents, and partly of
copyhold tenements, from the holders of which manorial
dues and services are exacted. The rack rents are stated to
amount to £545 a-year, and if the whole of the lands
were let in the same manner, the rack rental of them
would, it is estimated, be worth £3,000 a-year. In 1817,
the bishop of the day granted a lease of this manor for
three lives, at the annual rent of £36. When the first
life died, the lessee applied to Bishop Gray for a renewal
of the lease, or in more accurate language, for a fresh
lease for the lives of the two survivors, with the addition of
another life ; but none was granted. Whether this result
is attributable to a desire on the part of the bishbp to
deal justly by his successors, as Mr. Horsman suggests, or
whether it is to be ascribed to no better cause than the
exorbitant demands of the lessor, or the^ inadequate
offers of the lessee, as Dr. Monk would charitably desire
the world to believe, it is immaterial to inquire. Another
life subsequentl^r fell in, and then, in 1834, Dr. Gray died.
Before the appointment of another bishop, Mr. Richards,
the perpetual curate of Horfield, informed Lord Mel-
bourne of the state of the Horfield lease, and suggested
that measures should be adopted to prevent the grant of a
new one, until that v*hich was then subsisting had expired
by lapse of time. Mr. Richards' letter was shown by the
prime minister to Dr. Allen, the bishop elect ; and although
Dr. Monk now denies upon Dr. Allen's authority, that

^

504 State Bishops. [Dec.

the latter pledged himself not to renew it, this, at least, is
certain, that during his incumbency he made no attempt to
renew, and that in conversation with Mr. Richards, he
showed that he was far from pleased with the part taken
by the latter in connection with the Horjfield lease. In
1836, Dr. Allen was translated to Ely, and Dr. Monk
became the bishop of the consolidated sees of Gloucester
and Bristol.

A property so favourably circumstanced as Horfield
manor was well calculated to attract the attention of the
commissioners, with the view to the fund which they were
charged to raise. But although it was rumoured as early
as 1836, that they intended to appropriate it for that pur-
pose, it was not until the 9th December, 1846, that they
resolved to have it transferred to themselves upon the next
avoidance ; — a resolution which was, notwithstanding the
vehement opposition of the bishop, carried into eflfect by an
order in council, dated the 17th June, 1847. The resolu-
tion was as follows :

" It appearing, that in the case of Gloucester and Bris-
tol an average of nearly 14 years had now been arrived
at, and that, after full communication with the bishop and
his secretary, a prospective charge of £700 had been agreed
upon, the committee recommend accordingly; and also,
that the Horfield Manor estate, which, by reason of its
having so long rested upon a single life in the lease, hou
never yet entered into the calculations of the commission^
ersy be transferred to the commissioners upon the next
avoidance of the see.'^ — Returns, 311.

In 1842, this single life, Dr. Shad well was taken dangerous-
ly ill, and a report which had been current some years before,
was revived, that the bishop was about to grant a renewal
of the lease. This rumour reached the ears of the com-
missioners, and after some deliberation, they determined
to convey their fears and their remonstrances to the bishop,
not through their official channel, the secretary, but by a
confidential communication from one of their number,*

* The Bishop of Oxford assorted in the House of Lords, "that no
communication of any kind whatever passed in 1842, or in the five
subsequent years, between the ecclesiastical commissioners and
their secretary on the one hand, and the Bishop of Gloucester and
his socretarj on the other." Mr. Horsman explained his counter-
assertion in the manner stated in the text. The reader will see
further on, other evidences of Dr. Wilborforce*s partiality for that
unworthy species of logical fraud — the negative pregnant.

1851,1 State Bishops. • 505

The lease was not then renewed. Dr. Shadwell recovered,
and for the following five years nothing more was heard
on the subject. In 1847, that gentleman's life was agaii
in jeopardy, and again sinister inimours were whispered
about, that the bishop was going to^ sacrifice his Church
for his family. Again the suspicions of the commis-
sioners were excited, and they directed their secretary
to make inquiries respecting the intentions of the bishop.
These inquiries quickly reached his ears. " I have
learned,*' he wrote to the commissioners,/' that a report
of my intention to re-grant this lease for lives, as hereto-
fore, has been several times a matter of conversation at
the board, and has been spoken of in terms of condem-
nation. Of the existence of the report I was aware, as
well as of its origin ; the authority being certain printed
evidence given before the ecclesiastical leases' com-
mittee of the House of Commons, some years ago, by a
land surveyor of this neighbourhood, who stated that
he understood such to be the intention of the bishop.
This person, to whom I never spoke, is notorious for his
unfriendliness to the Church and churchmen. This asser-
tion, as coming from an individual who could know no-
thing about me, I treated like a newspaper report, with
silent contempt. To have noticed it publicly at the time,
would have been thought by some presumptuous, by others
ridiculous. However, the manner in which I spoke of this
evidence in conversation is, at least, a proof that I did not
meditate acting the very part which he had assigned to
me."

^ *' I did not meditate acting the very part^^ Had the
bishop, in his haste to contradict an odious charge, omit-
ted a word between **very" and "part?" Had some
vigorous epithet, expressive of his abhorrence of conduct
which nothing short of theological hatred could have im-
puted to a respectable prelate, been accidently slipped over
by his too rapid pen ? The charities and probabilities of
the case favoured this explanation. It was in accordance
with the serene scorn which the writer testified both for
the rumour and for its author. Mr, Murray suggested it,
Mr. Horsman adopted it. But they were both in error.

''My letter," says the bishop, *' which Mr. Horsman
attributes to 1842, was subsequent to this appropriation"
— of Horfield Manor by the commissioners — "(I believe

VOL. XXXI.—No, LXII. 13

506 State Bishops. [Dec.

February or March, 1847,) caused not, as he says, by a
letter from the commissioners, but by a most offensive ver-
bal communication made by Mr. 0. K. Murray, their lato
secretary, to my secretary, Mr. Holt, endeavouring to
extract from him my. intentions respecting the property.
Under feelings of offence I wrote a reply, which, notwith-
"SandingMr. Horsman's misquotations of its contents, I
detect to be the one assigned by him to 1842, from the
ludicrous blunder of Air. Murray, who, though secretary
to a learned commission, had not sufficient acquaintance
with the English language to know that the word * very'
may be used synonimously'"" with ^ identical,* and finding
it joined by me with a substantive, said, in a critical note,
which he put in print, that a word seems to have been left
out.*' — Letter to the editor of the " Times,*' dated the
5th, and published the 8th, of July.

And this text was thus expounded a few days later, (July
14th,) by the Bishop of Oxford, in his place in the House of
Lords.

^^ In 1847, when the commissioners detemiined to
take Horfield, a communication took place between their
solicitor and the solicitor of the bishop. No hint was given
on cither side that a moral obligation was involved in the
transaction ; but there was a discussion (so we understood
the right reverend prelate) as to the peculiar tenure of the
estiite of Horfield. His right reverend friend felt that the
peculiar tenure of Horfield was injurious to the Church,
and therefore he stated that he never intended to renevr
the lease on the terms on which it had been previously
granted. But he never gave the slightest hint that he
would not grant a peculiar kind of lease.**

" I hear,** writes a reformed whist player to an an^ry
father, " that a report has reached you that I am gambling
as heretofore. The rumour is the work of an enemy, and
I have treated it with silent contempt. My friends, how-
ever, who know my ways, can assure you that I have not
been acting the very part assigned to me.*' This, according
to the bishops of Gloucester and Oxford, is not a denial of all

* The bishop would seem not to have " sufficient acquaintance
with the English language," to know how to spell " synonymously."
Ho sees tlio mote in Mr. Murray's eye better than he does the beam
in liis own. Had the Bishop recollected that a Greek Professor
may mistake tho conjugation of a Latin verb, ho would have been
less sc?ore on Mr. Murray,

1851.] State Bishops. 5&7

gambling, but only of gambling at whist ! And if the un-
happy parent finds that his son has all the while been losing
his money at roulette, he has no right to complain of having
been the dupe of the scapegrace's want of candour. But the
world will not accept this logic, even though it be sealed with
the approval of the entire bench, and of the House of Lords
to boot. Verbal ambiguities, negatives pregnant, and all
the other forms of the suppressio veri, and suggestio falsi,
have never been deemed very honourable arms even in the
arena of special pleading, where their use is recognized,
and the combatants are prepared to encounter them. But
in the ordinary intercourse of life that degree of honesty,
at least, is expected, which rises above the employment of
such weapons ; and many a performance which in forensic
dialectics is judged in its intellectual aspect solely, and
applauded for its ingenuity, is, when resorted to in the
world, and regarded in its moral bearing also, justly
branded as a fraud. Had the bishop's letter been carried
to a specjal pleader, and recommended to his scrutiny, the
danger which lurked under tho words "as heretofore,"
and " the very part," might have been immediately detect-
ed and exposed. But no special pleader, much less Mr.
Murray or the ecclesiastical commissioners, could have be-
lieved, upon any evidence short of the bishop's own con-
fession, that the danger was real, and that a trap lay con-
cealed beneath the unpretending words in question. No
casuist, however suspicious or malicious, could have sus-
pected that a minister of religion, in attributing the report
of his " intention to regrant this lease for lives as hereto-
fore," to an enemy, and in referring to the condemnation
of such a scheme by the board, without disputing their
right to condemn it, or asserting his own right to carry it
into effect, was not disclaiming all intention to renew, but
was merely denying that he was about to grant ^^ a pecu-
liar kind of lease." But " who is his own counsel has ji
fool for a client," say the denizens of the Temple. " God
presei-ve us from our friends," say those who have put
their trust in the children of men. And it had been well
for the Bishop of Gloucester if he had been mindful of this
provei'bial wisdom. His worst enemy could not have
desired that he should adopt a more damaging defence
than that which ho himself, when cited to the bar of public
opinion, had the hardihood to propound, and his dangerous
ally the rashness to urge. The gist of the charge which

kLi

608 State Bishops. [Dec.

was bruited about against him was, not that he was about
to grant a lease of this or that kind, but that notwithstand-
ing an obligation binding upon him in honour and con-
science to suffer the lease of Horfield Manor to expire for
the benefit of the Church, he was about to renew it for his
own advantage. It was the fact, not the terms, of the
renewal, which was rumoured and condemned. And this
the bishop well knew. He was well aware that if his right
to renew had been acknowledged, the terms upon which he
proposed to do so would not have been the subject of hos-
tile comment at the board or elsewhere ; for the power
which English bishops have of pillaging the Church has,
by constant exercise for sevenil centuries, become a right
which the people of this country do not question, or make
the subject of rumour or discussion. But he must also
have known, that if his right was disputed, any attempt on
his part to renew would be condemned, not merely by dis-
senting land surveyors, but also by the good church--going
public, who, whatever their veneration for prelacy, yenerate
fair dealing still more. But Dr. Monk's letter to the com-
missioners shows, beyond controversy, that he understood
the rumour to apply to the fact of his granting any renewal,
and not to any particular terms of renewal. He "attributes
its origin to the evidence of a hostile land surveyor of the
neighbourhood, given before the committee of the House of
Commons on Church leases. The only witness answering
this description was Mr. Jacob Player Sturge, who is re-
presented as a land surveyor residing at Bristol, and his
evidence was simply this. After stating that Horfield
Manor^was held under the see by a single hfe, and that a
very old one, he was asked :

4656. Question : Is it probable that it will be renewed,
or is it understood to the contrary ?

Answer. There was a negotiation between the late
Bishop of Bristol and the lessee, but they could not agree.
It is now held by the present lessee for an old life.

4657. Question : Then the understanding is, that the
lease will fail entirely with the demise of the present life ?

The understanding is, that the bishop will have the
power of granting to whom he pleases upon the death of
the present life.

Turther, the bishop knew that in December, 1846, the
commissioners were so confident, whether rightly or wrong-
ly, that the manor would not be leased, that in estimating

1851.] State Bishops. 509

the charge to be prospectively Imposed upon the see, they
assumed that Horfield belonged to themselves, and not to
the diocese of Gloucester. '' The first time,'' says the
bishop in his letter to the Times, " I heard that they had
this property in their consideration, was in December, '46,
when I learnt that without naming the matter to me, in
disregard both of courtesy and practice, they had deter-
mined to take this estate into their own hands." Knowing
that the grant of afresh lease would defeat the object which
the commissioners had in view, he must have known that
what they condemned was,' the grant of any lease, not the
terms upon which it was proposed to grant it. If the let-
ter, then, which he addressed to the commissioners, was a
denial that he intended granting any fresh lease, it was
intelligible enough, with the exception of the words 'Wery
part," which received their explanation from the 'ludi-
crous blunder" of Mr. Murray. If it was not such a
denial, but a disclaimer only of any intention to grant " a
peculiar kind of lease," then the greater part of its con-
tents was senseless. The allusion to the hostility of the
author of the accusation was absurd, when the writer did
not deny the offence imputed to him, but only the mode of
its alleged perpetration. The reference to the condemna-
tion by the board of doing the act was ridiculous, when it
was the act itself, and not the manner of doing it, which
was disapproved of. And the final disclaimer of acting the
" very part" is too preposterous, when understood literally,
to admit of a construction so repugnant to the rest of the
letter. The condemnation of the commissioners, the ma-
levolence of an enemy, the silent contempt of the bishop
himself, are topics which would naturally find a pkce in a
letter denying all intention of granting any lease ; but in a
letter confining the denial to a " peculiar kind of lease,"
they are out of place and unmeaning ; and it is impossible
to believe that the introduction of them was the effect of
haste, accident, or sheer imbecility. The letter, in short,
either denied that the writer entertained a design which
had been imputed to him and condemned, or it was a
denial of what had not been asserted, couched in language
calculated to convey a contradiction of what had. In the
first case, the letter was honest, but then what shall be
said of the subsequent defence ? In the second, how shall
the letter itself be characterized ?
It was written in 1847. la 1848, the comnjissioners re-

510

State Jilskops.

[Dec.

ceivcd a communication wliich might well startle them. "1
was wishiug," says the bishop in his letter to the Times,
"to carry out an object of diocesan improvement which 1
had much at heart ; and it struck me that an opportunity
was offered for combining throe objects— the improvement
ofHorficld, the benefit of the funds of the commission, and
the erection of parsonages in small livings. It had been
intimated to me, that the commissioners were desirous of
such an aiTangeraent. I therel'ore proposed to assign to
them my whole interest, on terms somewhat more favow-
able to them, having previously broken off the negotiation
for renewal."

In plain English, be offered to sell the commissioners
his legal right of renewal for £11,500. What ensued is in-
volved in some obscurity. Mr. Horsman stated in the
House of Commons that the commissioners remonstrated
with the bishop upon this violation of a moral obligation ;
and there is no sufficient reason for disbelievinf? a stat^
ment which is so consistent with probability. If they did
remonstrate, they remonstrated in vain ; but such a]>[iears
to have been their anxiety to obtain possession of the
estate, that they accepted the bishop b terms. They
seem, however, to have been desirous of completing this
bargain with all possible secresy ; for instead of carrying
the plan into effect by a scheme and order in council duly
gazetted, — the modus operandi provided by the 10th and
lltb sections ofthe act of Parliament — a deed was privately
prepared. The solicitor of the commissioners declined
the responsibiUty ofthe transaction, and insisted upon the
necessity of resorting to the course pointed out by the
statute." A scheme was then prepared, and was on the
eve of being ratified by an order in council, when Mr.
Horsman got wind of the transaction, and hastening to
Lord J. Russell, entreated him not to sanction it unbl
he had i-ead some evidence bearing upon the subject.
Government interposed, and the scheme fell to the ground.
In the following year. Dr. Shadweil died ; the lease ex-
pired, and tbe Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol forthwith
granted the Manor of Ilorfield to his secretjuy Mr. Holt,
for the lives of three of the royal princesses, at the arainal
rent of thu'ty-six ]x>unds, — the ancient rent " aceustom-
ably yeelden — " upon trust for the bishop himself and his
family. According to Mi". Finlaisou, the actuary, the

1851. 1 Slate Bishops. 611

property of the commissioners was by this step depreciated
ninety per cent in vahie.

In what light is this act to be viewed ? The bishop's
own version of his letter to the commissioners sufficiently
condemns it. He there, at least, denied, and denied with
becoming indignation, that he meditated acting ''as hereto-
fore,'* or ''the very part'' assigned to him! When the
time of action came, did he not act *' as heretofore," and
" the very part ?" Did he not grant a lease for three lives
at the old rent ? And was not that " to regrant this lease
for lives as heretofore?" Was it not to act ''the very
part," which had been assigned to him ? Notwithstand-
mg his feeling " that the peculiar tenure of Horfield was
injurious t6 the Church," notwithstanding his state-
ment "that he never intended to renew the lease on the
terms on which it was granted," did he not grant a
lease upon that peculiar tenure, and upon those terms ?
The last shred, then, of his plea is scattered to the winds.
Tricky and quibbling as it was, it proved as false to the
letter as it was in the spirit, and instead of vindicating
his innocence, only aggravated his offence.

The main question, however, still remains. Was the
bishop guilty of a breach of faith? Was he bound in hon-
our not to lease the manor ? And has he broken his word,
and violated a solemn obligation ? Mr. Horsman main-
tained the affirmative in the House of Commons. The
bishop has positively denied it. Which of the two shall
be believed ? The smooth-tongued bishop of Oxford in
referring to JVIr. Horsman's speech, asserted that Dr. Monk
had been " pursued by the envenomed tongue of slander ;"
but he did not show that Mr. Horsman had been actuated
by personal or unworthy motives in making this transaction
public. For our part, we do not hesitate to prefer the word
of the M. P. to that of the spiritual peer. AH the facts of
the case corroborate Mr. Horsman's statement, and ren-
der the contradiction of the bishop more difficult of be-
lief. The bishop says that the first notion of this moral
obligation was bi'oaclied by Mr. MuiTay, whom he styles
the "evil genius of the commission," in his evi-
dence before the Church Leases Committee in 1838. He
knew, then, from an early period, that such an impression
existed. When did he, for the first time, dispute its cor-
rectness ? Did he do so in 1842, or in 1847 ? If he had
not acquiesced in the reality of such an obligation, would

512

Stale Bishops.

IDec.

he have condescended to deny a report that be was design-
ing to lease "as heretofore ?" Would he, when writing
" under feehngs of ofi'encc" at Mr. Murray's indiscreet
curioBity, have confined his indignation to a repudiation of
the " very part" assigned to him? Would he not rather
have asked hy what title the commissioners presumed ta
interfere with him in the legitimate exercise oi his rights!
Would not his wrath have been vented on the tmpcrtiDeiit
intermeddling of the commissioners, rather than been
wasted upon the malignity of the land surveyor * Instead
of protesting that he did not meditate the very act imputed
to him, would he not have roundly asserted his right to do
it? In lieu of denying that he had contemplated doing
that which the board condeomed, would he not have de-
nied their right to condemn it? Did not his letter im-
ply that they would have had a right to complain of him,
if the report had been well founded ? Where shall a fitter
illustration be found of tbe old saying, gui s'excuse,
t'accuse ? There is not the slightest trace ot any evidence
that this moral obligation was controverted by the bishop
until 1848 ; and his long silence and the admission which
is implied in his letter, are equally damnatory of his tardy
denial.

But the bishop's case breaks down in ever^^ direction.
The account which he gives of his motives, will as little
hear the test of examination as his version of the facts;
but ia quite in keeping with the truth, candour, and pro-
bability which runs through the transaction, (iotyd inten-
tions are frequently pleaded in palliation of evil deeds ;
and Dr. Monk has not been slow to announce the good
matter of which his heart was all the while inditing. Ho
had, ho says, three objects in view in 1848 :

1. To improve Horfield:

2. To benefit the funds of the commission ; and,

3. To erect parsonages in small livings.

As he was negotiating at that time for the sale of Hor-
field to the commissioners for £11,500, the only improve-
ment which he could hope to effect was aimply to transfer
it from his own into their hands. IIow their funds were to
be benefited by being drained of d£ll,500, is not very mani-
fest ; but as the bishop thought that the transfer of tho
manor must conduce to its improvement, so he may have
hoped that the rental might, in the course of time, increase
Bufficiently to repay the commissioners their present out-

1851.] State Bishops. 513

lay, with good interest. It is clear, at all events, that
his zeal for Horfield and the episcopal fund involved no
greater sacrifice^ on his part than the acceptance of
£11,500. And it was, it might have been inferred, with
this sum that he proposed to effectuate his third ob-
ject. But his blundering advocate damaged this in-
ference. He was incautious enough to let the cat out of
the bag.

" The mode,'* says the bishop of Oxford, *' in which he
(Dr. Monk) intended to appropriate the money was well
known, and did him the highest honour. Some years ago,
he had lent a sum of £5,000 to establish a classical insti-
tution in the vicinity of Bristol. He had not given that
sum to the institution, for his fortune would not permit him,^
but he had made provision, that under certain contingen-
cies, his children should receive it back. Circumstances
had occurred which rendered it problematical whether he
would receive it back again. He had therefore arranged,
that £5,000 of that sum which he had already mentioned,
(the £11,500), should be devoted to that institution, and
that £6,000 should go to endow small livings in the city
ofBristol.'*

This devotion of £5,000 to the classical institution was,
in language divested of Oxonian saponacity, simply the
payment to himself of a bad debt ; and it left but £6,500
for the parsonages. So much for the first set of inten-
tions.

The untimely interference of Mr. Horsman having put
ail abrupt termination to all hope of the £11,500, Dr.
Monk devised other schemes for the advancement of Hor-
field, and the gratification of his own organ of benevolence.
Still adhering to the favourite tripartite division of a late
statesman, he desired —

1. To commute the manorial rights of Horfield for
land ;

2. To set an example of effectual draining and other
agricultural improvements ; and

3. To provide for the future augmentation of the liv-

* The ecclesiastical commissioners and the Legislature have
concurred in thinking that the proper income for a bishop of Glo-
coster and Bristol is £5,000 a-year. Dr. Monk is said to have re-
ceived, in seven years, a net income of £65,849, or £30,849 more
than his Parliamentary income.

514

State Sisfiopn.

[D.

•ec.

lag (of Horfield), by giving it proapoctivcly the rent
charge. {Letter to the Editor of the Times.)

How a lease was necessary for carrying out the last two
purposes is not very obvious ; and as to the first, a lease was
not only unneceasary, but actually obstructive. For by the
Copyhold Enfranchisement Act (4 and 5 Vict. c. 35, §§ 13,
14, and 15), the lord of the manor, and three-fourths of the
tenants may execute an agreement for commuting the
rights of the lord into a rent charge, or into a line upon
death or alienation. While the manor remained out of
lease, therefore, nothing could be more simple than the en-
franchisement of the copyhold lands by the bishop and his
tenants, Bnt in granting a lease, he introduced this ele-
ment of complexity into me ti'ansaction, that the lessee of
the manor had to be consulted in carrying it out. Any
agreement for a commutation must have been entered into,
in the first instance, by him, and been subsequently rati-
fied by the bishop's consent under his band and seal (sect.
22). It is very true, as long as the bishop had control
over the lessee, the obstacle which the lease interposed was
merely formal ; but it is obvious that nothing can be
more erroneous than the notion, that a lease was ueces-
sary to efi'ectuate the eni'ranchiaement. Nor did that
step require a large expenditure. Copyholders are always
not only willing, but eager to convert into fixed periodical
payments the always uncertain and frequently oppressive
dues and services which, without being very beneficial to
the lord, have been found to harass the tenant and check
the improvement of the laud. The customs of Horfield
(ire extremely burdensome, and seriously depreciate thu
value of the property subject to them ; and the bishop
would, therefore, have found not only that the enfranchise-
ment did not require a large expenditure, but that on the
contrary, it might be a source of considerable profit.

Let us add, in justice to Br. Monk, that from the time
of his appropriating the manor of Horfield to the uso of
himself and his family fur the lives of three young children of
H long-lived race, he has testified a desire to make re-
stitution. " I immediately resolved to resign a piece of
Preferment," he says in his letter to the Times, " which
hel'l in commendam of about the same yearly income as
Horfield ; an act periectly spontaneous on my part."
This was the living of Peakirk in Northauiptoushire, wortli
«£500 a-year; aud his Lordship's sacrihce was praisu-

1851.] State Bishops. 515

worthy, even though the diflFcrence be vast between the
income gained and the income lost — between J£d45 for
three lives in childhood, and £500 for one life which
had nearly reached the limit assigned to man. But
the bishop did not stop here. The loud voice of public
opinion, or the small still one of his conscience, had
made itself heard ; and shortly after his last visitation
in October last, he announced his intention of appro-
priating one moiety of the income of Horfield to the
augmentation of poor livings throughout the ^ diocese, •
and the other, to the employment of curates in those
parishes where the advanced age of the incumbents appear-
ed to render such assistance necessary.
What the Government thought of this transaction may
• be easily conjectured from the summary veto which they
put upon the attempt to sell to the commissioners the bishop's
right to renew. What the commissioners themselves
thought of it, is equally apparent from the solicitude they
displayed to conceal that attempt from the light of day,
notwithstanding the " handsomest thanks'' which the
bishop says he received from them, and notwithstand-
ing their resolution, cited with so much triumph by the
bishop of Oxford, that the bishop of Gloucester and
Bristol had been ** under no obligation, legal or equitor-
ble, to deal with the Horfield estate, otherwise than
with any other estate of the see." This board, com-
posed chiefly of ecclesiastics, appear to have considered
it their first and paramount duty to screen one of their
number: but even they, had not the boldness to assert
that he had been under no moral obligation to renew.
A legal or equitable obligation is one which can be
enforced in a court of law or equity. A purely moral
one is of that imperfect character which neither the com-
mon law nor our equity code can reach : and upon that
view of the bishop's conduct, they have pronounced no
opinion. Their reticence, indeed, may, in the opinion
of many, seem more eloquent than their language ; ex-
vressio unius is frequently exclusio alterius. But they
have not left the world in doubt as to their view of the
matter. In the order in Council of the 19th of October,
they ordered that no renewal of any bishop's lease,
where the fine exceeded £100, should be efiected with-
out their approval of the amount of the proposed fine ;
and with an eye to the Durham case, added, that the

I

Stale BhtiQps.

fine, when it exceeded half a year's allowed iucome,
should be paid to thera.

We here close our task. It was not undertaken from mo-
tives of personal hostility to any of the prelates who have been
named, but we considered it incumbent ui>on us to call the
attention of friend as well as foe to the present state of the
Anglican hierarchy, in oi-der that both may profit by the
lesaouto bo derived fi-omit; and that both may join in con-
sidering the causes of a scandal which thus attaches itself
to the established religion, as it is supposed of all English-
men. Were the deeds of the Maltbya, the Monks, and
the rest of them, the isolated acta of ungifted natures, the
chance products of a defective organization or a demoraliz-
ing education, wo shonld not have cared to stir up the
mass of petty turpitudes collected in the blue book of the .
commissioners. But their acts are the natural, nay, the
necessary, fruits of a bad system. They are the expo-
nents of that system ; and when they are condemned, the
system must share in the condemnation. There is but
one religion which gives the power of self-sacrifice, with-
out it man's moral nature must, in the long nin, as
certainly suffer corruption when exposed to powerful temp-
tation, as his physical frame must succuml) when under
the influence of noxious gases. That grapos grow not on
thorns, nor figs on thistles, we know Irom revelation as
well as from observation : and if the English bishops have
not been models of that blamelessness and sobriety of con-
duct which St. Paul deems essential qualifications of a
bishop ; if they have not been exempt from that greediness
of filthy lucre and covetousnesa which he deems incompa-
tible with their office, the system is to blame, not the men.
Humanly speaking, it would not have been difficult to
prove a prion that such must have been the result.

The bishoprica of the Establishment are offices of high
rank and great emolument. They are in the_ gift of the
crown, or rather of the prime minister : and it is not diffi-
cult to conjecture whether a politician and the head of a
political party is likely to be influenced in his choice as
much by zeal for religion, as by the desire of providing
for a relation or dependent, or of acquiring a useful sup-
porter. It is seldom, therefore, that the unobtrusiva
parochial clergyman is promoted to a see. The great
prizes, as they are called, fall to the scions of noble houses,
to the college tutors of whig or tory ministers, to smart

1851.] State Bishops. 517

pamphleteers, and to clever electioneering canvassers, men-
dici, mimflc, balatrones, hoc genus omne. If learning is
sometimes rewarded, the prize is given to the editor of a
Greek play, or to a lecturer of doubtful orthodoxy. But
these are exceptions. Upon his elevation to the mitre, the
college Don, or aristocratic sprig, finds himself transported
from a narrow sphere and moderate income, into the widest
arena of politics and fashion, and into the receipt of a
princely revenue. Though appointed the overseer of his
diocese, though he has undfertaken to superintend the
spiritual government and well-being of millions of souls,
he passes seven months out of every twelve in London,
attending in the House ^ of Lords, as a baron of the
reahn, to the material interests of the country. His
seat in that assembly and his ami)le fortune give him
a high position in society. He has, in most cases, a wife
more or less managing, and, probably, daughters less or
more bent upon matrimony ; and he is quickly whirled into
that vortex of Chiswick fetes and ancient concerts, out of
which husbands are best fished. His town residence
becomes the resort of the rich and the noble; and if
etiquette banishes dejeuners dansants and midnight polkas
from the episcopal mansion, its well spread mahogany
attracts suitable matches for his numerous progeny. In
the country his castle-gates are open to the peer and the
squire : but its walls frown coldly on all of lower degree.
riis rank and wealth place him so immeasurably above his
clergy, that the duties of hospitality are as completely for-
gotten, as the ties of brotherhood ; and although the poor
curate will sometimes find his bed and board when
chance or duty takes him to his bishop^s, he is more fre-
quently turned empty away from his diocesan's palace.

The bishop is rich, it is true ; but his wealth consists of
a life income ; and he is, in general, no longer young when
he first succeeds to it. His station in society is exalted ;
but it is personal, not hereditary or transmissible; and the
position of his family in society will not be, when he is gone,
what it is while he is living. Hay must be made, then,
while the sun shines :

Dum loquimur fugerit invida
Q3tas. Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

Money and patronage are in his hands. To what better
iirpose can a father devote the funds and the influence at
is disposal, than to the advancement of the interests of

I

518 State Bishops, [Dec,

his children ? When a fine may be obtained for a lease at
a nominal rent, what chance has the voice of the Church
of drowning that of nature ? Fines, consequently, are
taken, and successors robbed. Livings of every de^e of
fatness are in his gift; but how can jjiety, learning or
eloquence hope to compete with the claims of a son or of
a' daughter's husband? Charity begins at home, says the
proverb : and so says the bishop. And his good deeds die
not with him : his name lives in his diocese for another
generation at least, in the palpable shape of an obese
pluralist or an otiose canon.

How could a prelacy thus organised prosper?^ Is a
statesman the best judge of the qualifications of a bishop ?
Is humility the distinctive virtue of titled families, or of
university professors ? Is it fostered by elevation to rank,
privileges, and wealth ? Does common honesty thrive
under the sudden accession of large means coupled with
the : strongest temptations to misuse them? In a word,
could any system have been better devised to secure un-
suitable men for the office, and to prevent them from^ per-
forming the duties of it when appointed ? A calm judg-
ment or an unbiassed mind could answer these questions
withoiit waiting for the results of experience. But expe-
rience is the only school in which the bulk of mankind will
learn; and even there they learn but slowly. Preju-
dice is inaccessible to the voice of reason, and finds its
bliss in that ignorance to which it owes its existence.
The supporter of the Established Church who opposes
all change, sees in his bishop nothing but a holy man
in lawn — the sackcloth of a civilized age — who occar
sionally reads the communion service in his cathedral,
or preaches a sermon in the parochial church of his
country mansion, and subscribes to local charities. But
he sees also something more in him than that ; — and this
perhaps is the secret of the effective support which the
bishops and clergy of the Establishment have received in
their struggle against every reform, from the Wind and
suicidal conservatism of their flocks ; — he sees in the pomp
and circumstance which surround his bishop, his own su-
l)eriority over Popery and Dissent. However, even preju-
dice, even the most stubborn conservatism must, in the
end, yield to the pressure of facts. Hitherto the world
has had very imperfect means of judging of the conduct
of the bishops of the Established Church ; but the returns

1851.] Papal Aggression Novels. — Cecile.^ ' 619

of the commissioners have brought to light transactions
and letters which were probably never intended for the
public gaze, but which enable the public to form a cor-
rect judgment of the nioralty of the state bishops. Let
the world judge them as it would judge other men, and
the verdict will not be doubtful. Their conduct in private
transactions has been laid bare, and a suitable reform
may be hoped to follow closely upon the public enlighten-
ment. No man is a hero to his valet de chambre. Will
the bishops long continue saints in the eyes of those who
have seen what are their acts, and their notions of right
and wrong ?

Art. VI. — Cecile; or, the Pervert. Bj Sir Charles Rockingham,
Author of ** Rockingham," " Lovo and Ambition," &c., &c. 8?o.
London, Colburn, 1851.

WE had occasion, in our last number, to comment
upon the active and unscrupulous use which,
in default of heavier weapons of offence, has been made of
Fiction in the recent crusade against Catholics in Eng-
land. We wish it were, even yet, in our power to speak of
this as a thing past and gone, and to bury it for ever as
one of the painful memories of an evil time. But we re-
gret to say that we have before us, even now, only too
abundant materials for a continuation of the subject —
too many evidences that the spirit of religious bigotry is ever
as slow to retire, as it is prompt to come forth in obedience
to the slightest and most passing spell by which it may be
evoked.

We prefer, however, to close our eyes to this and many
other unhappy recollections of the year which is now draw-
ing to its close. We would fain leave behind us on the
threshold of the joyous season upon which we are enter-
ing, every thought of bitterness which past events have
provoked; and we gladly avail ourselves of the clever

520 Papal Aggression Novels, — Cecile. [Dec.

volume named at the head of these pages, for the purpose
of putting our readers and ourselves into that hearty good
humour which beseems the Christmas time. " Cecile*' is
indeed a book which, by showing that justice has not yet
entirely left the world, may help to restore the tone which
the recent contest had interrupted, and may do much to
console Catholics and all true friends of religious freedom
for the multiplied obloquy, bitterness, and misrepresenta-
tion over which they have had to grieve during this long
and ill-starred agitation.

We feel, however, that we do some injustice to this able
and original work by associating it, even in contrast, with
the great mass of vapid and vulgar productions that have
emailatcd from the anti- Catholic school of fiction. Indeed
the most consoling circumstance connected with the Papal
Aggression controversy, is the recollection, that, whatever
may be its eventual result as regards the legal position of Ca-
tholics in England, it has at least had the effect, during
its progress, of eliciting in their defence a display of ge-
nius and eloquence to which they may look back with pride
even while suffering under the stroke which it vainly
strove to avert. In the legal argument ; in the debates
of both Houses of Parliament ; in every form of the dis-
cussion which deserves the name ; wherever, in a word,
mind could assert its prerogative ; wherever eloquence was
not overborne by clamour, and reasoning shouted down by
boisterous vituperation ; — there the simple truth and justice
of our cause were signally and confessedly triumphant.
The profound constitutional knowledge; the far-seeing
philosophy; the generous eloquence; even the lighter
graces of composition — the classic elegance — the caustic
humour — the brilliancy — the wit — were all, or almost all,
our own ; and while the anti-Catholic spirit fretfully eva-
porated ill a series of prosy pamphlets, of truculent and
over-bearing newspaper articles, of vulgar addresses at
county meetings or Protestant associations, and of spe-
cious but irrelevant declamations from the benches ot a
renegade Treasury, or those of the ill-assorted allies
who had enrolled themselves, for the time, under its dis-
honoured standard ; the defence of the despised and per-
secuted Catholics, from the first note to the last, from the
Cardinars opening "Appeal'' to the closing " Protest*' erf
the dissentient peers, bears upon it the genuine impress of
truth, vigour, and reality ; and has left behind it, lu every

1851.] Papal Aggression Novels. — Cecile, 621

stage, monuments of chaste and nervous eloquence, argu-
mentative skill, and graceful and elegant composi-
tion, which may take their place as classics in their several
departments of English literature.

It may seem affectation to profess to discover the same
character of truth and reality in a work of fiction. And yet
we defy any one to avoid being struck by the contrast in
this particular, between the plain and unstudied tale now
before us, and the unnatural and exaggerated rhapsodies of
which we gave a specimen in our last number. It is impos-
sible not to feel that the writer of such a work as " Oecile*'
is in earnest. There is no straining after sentiment, no effort
at effect ; all is simple, natural, and real ; the characters,
the thoughts, the actions, the motives. And hence, al-
though the work is ostentatiously deficient in some of the
commonplace machinery of the novel ; though it betrays,
perhaps, some symptoms of inexperience in the construc-
tion of a plot, and certainly exhibits considerable disre-
gard of the mere conventionalities of novel- writing ; yet it
forces upon us, in almost every page, the most lavish evi-
dence of originality, freshness, and vigour, depth and
versatility of thought, and all the genuine characteristics
of earnest and reflective genius.

The story is not a mere web of imaginary incidents,
with a few shadings flung in to suit the particular view
which the tale is intended to subserve. Other novelists of
the Papal Aggression have merely used the excitement
created by that event, as an occasion for a general
attack upon the Catholic system, without the smallest di-
rect reference to the immediate circumstances in which
the excitement had its origin. But the author of
*^ Cecile" has taken the fact itself as his immediate theme.
He has thrown himself boldly into the midst of the events
which ho professes to pourtray ; — ^his sc^ne being, for the
most part, laid in a quiet country house in England,
during the first burst of the excitement which followed
the publication of the Durham Letter. And hence there
is scarcely a single incident of the tale, and scarcely one
character among its actors, for which the reader may
not find a prototype within his own experience.

Cecile is the orphan niece of a kind-hearted but ignorant
and bigoted Protestant baronet. Sir Charles Basmstoke.
Her early history is a famihar one. The offspring of an

VOL. XXXI.-N0. LXII. 14

522 Papal Aggression Novels. — Cecile. [Dec.

improvident marriage of the" baronet's younger brother
with a foreign Catholic, she had been educated in that
creed up to her fourteenth year ; and upon the death of both
her parents, had been received into her uncle's family,
if not with an express stipulation, at least with a settled
expectation, that she would eventually conform to the fa-
mily creed. The girl, however, with more firmness than
was anticipated in one so young, had hitherto quietly perse-
vered in the belief of her childhood ; and although this cir-
cumstance had not sensibly diminished the affection of her
uncle, and had not interfered in the slightest degree with
the devoted attachment of her cousins, Constance and
Edwai'd, it had had the effect of deepening into settled
and acrimonious antipathy the aversion, with which,
from the very commencement, her uncle's wife, Lad^
Helen, had regarded her, as an intruder upon the legi-
timate rights of her own children.

Such was the posture of family affairs at Redbum on
the first outbreak of the anti-Papal agitation. The
result may be readily anticipated. The known creed of
this one member of Sir Charles's family, and the suspicion
which her intercourse with other Catholics had drawn
upon his household, rendered him nervously sensitive of
public opinion in the crisis which had arisen ; and the ad-
vantage which the hostile electioneering party in the
county seemed likely to derive against the interest of his
son, from a dexterous use of the elements of suspicion
thus presented, contributed to aggravate his displeasiue
against his Popish niece ; so that the jealousy, and, we
are sorry to add, the malice, of Lady Helen, found it
easy to turn his alarms to a most unhappy account against
poor Cecile.^

It is at this point that the^ story opens. And the plot
woven out of these materials is so simple, so natural, and
so perfect a counterpart of the reality which was enacted
and re-enacted in numberless cases during the course
of last year, that almost every one may feel as though
he had himself been an observer. The leading incidents
are, at least, familiar to us all. The half-jesting, half-angry
after-dinner controversies ; the fireside discussions which
we all remember so well; the great County Meeting,
with all its well-known antecedents ; the covert election-
eering intrigues ; the Fifth of November riot ; — are all true
to the life, and aiise from each other in a sequence perfectly

1851 .] Papal Aggresnon Novels. — CecUe. 623

natural ; while the actors in them all are so diversified, as
to present representations of all the shades of anti- Catholic
opinion which were developed in the progress of the
movement. How many a " Cecile'^ in actual life have
we all known, each within the range of his own experience !
How many a real type of the honest, though unreasoning,
bigotry of her uncle, and of the proud, yet mean-hearted
harshness of his wife ! There is hardly a circle of any
intellectual pretensions which has not its Lady Temple-
dale, though probably in a more exaggerated form ; and
the scene at the death-bed of the poor girl, Mabel Haw-
thorne, has been acted over again in numoerless instances,
and often with circumstances of a far more painful
character.

All this is hung together, of course, by the slender thread
of a love story, in which Cecile, as will easily be guessed,
is the heroine. It may be told in a few words. Lord St.
* Edmunds, a gay young nobleman, comes down on a visit
to Redbum by the express desire of his father. Lord
Tewkesbury, who hopes, by this means, quietly to bring
about the accomplishment of an old, though unavowed,
understanding with his sister, Lady Helen Basinstoke,
of an alliance between St. Edmunds and his charming
cousin, Constance Basinstoke. But in accordance with
the traditional usage in all such cases, St. Edmunds falls
in love with Cecile, instead ; while, to add to the embarrass-
ment, he discovers that he thus becomes the rival of his
cousin Charles, who has long entertained the same feel-
ings. In this way the unhappy Cecile finds herself doomed
doubly, to thwart the views of ner uncle and of Lady Helen,
by standing in the way of the establishment of both their
children.

The disentanglement of these complicated difficulties —
the cold-hearted intrigues of Lady Helen, the weakness of
Sir Charles, the sufierings of Cecile, her heroic self-de-
votion, the affectionate generosity and womanly tact of Con-
stance, the "perversion'' of Lord St. Edmunds — all these
we must leave to the reader himself the pleasure of discover-
ring. We would gladly devote a few pages to its unravel-
ment; but the pressure of weightier matters has so far
contracted our space, as to render it entirely impossible
for us to do it as we should have desired. But we have
ourselves derived so much pleasure from the perusal of the
book, that we have not the heart to refuse our readers, at

papal Aggression Novels. — CecHe.

least, such a specimen of its general style and manner, aa
may enable them to decide, whether tlie author be deserv-
inp: of a more intimate acquaintance.

We open, almost at random, the passage which makes
Cecile first known to her fnture lover, St. Edmunda. It is
a halt-whispered conversation, at a dinner party, in which
Cecile had been surprised into offering some reply to the
sneers with which her religion had been assailed.

"'How well and gallantly jou spoke out!* whispered he. 'I
like to hear a cause so ablj and ferriJIj vindicated.'

" For a momeut the dark eye rested upon him with an expression
of iutctise and almost haughty inquiry: but it melted at ouce, u
she said, in her softest and most subdued tone :

" ' Am I to seek out some hidden sting of irony which your
words too may conceal, or can I trust, that they aro intended to
hear nought with them but eympathy and encouragement 1'

" 'Nothing else, ia truth, I assure you.'

" ' They are much wanted. I greatly fearthat I have again booa
sorely betrayed by tiie infirmity of my disposition.'

" * How can yoti say so ? You ouly spoke after manifold and
repeated provocations.

" ' That were a sorry excuse indeed for yielding to any such hasty
and dangerous impulse ! My poor weak conscieuco had conjurea
Up for itself a more plausible motive, and had fancied, for A
moment, I verily believe, that nay wretched advocacy was needed.'

" ' Well, I entirely agree with your conscience, and think that it
might be not only tranquil, but triumphant ; for it appears to ma
impossible to shed more bght than you did, in so few words, dpou
80 abstruse a subject.'

" • You are jesting, surely, Lord St. Edmunds ; but itmatters not.
I deserve as much, and more, for having ventured to doem that my
poor wascandle — if, indeed, it were of wax— could bo roquirod u>
ehow you the lustre of the glorious mid-day sun. No, 1 am well
aware tbat 1 have spoken unguardedly, perhaps unkindly, to others,
and you will but do me justice if you bellevo that I already
truly repent it.'

" ' You almost load me to think that you meaa to do penance fi>r
your spirited defence of your faith.'

" ' 1 shall,' answered she, with a gentle smile, 'and such penanco
too, I trust, as will not only atone for the past, but preserve mo
from any immediate relapse into similar error. I assure you tiiat
it is not a very frequent occurrence on my part, and, as to mjr
uncle, you would do liim also great injustice if you did not make
much allowaaco for the efTects of tho very disagreeable iatelligouce
vUioh lie has received to-day.'

' Your uncle V said St. Edmunds, evidently much pcrplesed.

1851.] Papal Aggression Novels. — Cecile. 525

"'Yes, my uncle. Surelj, you know that, by nature, he is
neither unkind nor uncourteous.'

•* * You really must excuse me,' observed St. Edmunds ; * but I
don't exactly understand to whom you are alluding.'

" 'Perhaps to Mr. Collins,* was the smiling reply. 'But, serious-
ly, are you not aware who 1 am ?*

« < Well, I had better own at once that I am not, and that the
different terms by which I have already heard you addressed have
scarcely enlightened me.'

" • Oh, yes ! I boar many designations. By some I am called * Miss
Cecil ;' by others, * Mademoiselle,' on account of my partly foreign
origin ; by others again, ' Saint Cecilia,' in token of that very meek
and saint-like disposition, of which I have taken care to give you
one earnest at least, within the two first hours of our acquaintance.
Now, can you say who I am, or shall I guess whom you imagine me
to be?

" * Oh, pray don't do that !' answered St. Edmunds, * for you
would give to my earlier conjectures perhaps more consistency than
•they really ever acquired. You are learned enough, and gifted
enough, I am sure, to be the instructress of all present here, saving,
may be, Edward Basinstoke, who, as I know, is a great scholar ; and
yet you are surely too young — '

" * Too intemperate of speech — '

"•No, but far too high-bred and lady-like in manner to be, in
short — '

" * In short to be what you still half deem me to, Constance's
governess. Come, I see that I must release you from any further
doubts, or that you will think yourself obliged, in atonement for
them, to pay me a multitude of compliments, which perchance you
credit even less than I deserve them. Did you never hear of poor
Cecile Basinstoke before, the only and orphaned niece to whom Sir
Charles, her uncle, has so kindly offered the refuge of his hospitable
home against all the miseries, not of poverty, but of absolute
want ?'

** * No, not to my recollection.'

*** It is very surprising indeed,' replied Cecile, with her playful,
tender smile, ' that her illustrious name should never have been
mentioned in London, where they have so little to think of besides
her. However, I am she, and I trust that I shall be able to show
you, before you leave Redburn, that I do not bear quite so ungrate-
ful a heart or so rebellious a spirit as I have entitled you to give
me credit for."' — pp. 35 — 39.

We must add, also, a specimen of the light and graceful
tone in which Cecile, (or, as she is playfully called by her
cousins, *' St. Cecilia,^*) deals with the doctrinal^ argu-
ment in which the necessities of self-defence occasionally
involve her. There are few things less inviting than those

Papal Aggre

» Nocets, — CecUe.

[Dec.

disquisitiona in which controversial novelists commonly
delight to indulge. But it would he a great injustice to
class the controversy of " Cecile" with iliat which forms
the staple of the ordinary religious novel. The contro-
versy of " Cecile," in truth, is rather explanatory than
polemical. It belongs to a class which we would earnestly
recommend to evei-y sincere Catholic ; and consists simply
in a calm exposition of the doctrine in dispute, and of the
leading principles upon which the belief in it is based.
Instead of directly seeking to enforce conviction apon
others, it is content to explain, and perhaps to vindicate,
the motives of its own; and thus while it avoids the tra-
ditionary vice of controverey — that of ofiending the pride
and alarming the self-reliance of the enquirer — it sfieaks
to him with all the authority of a mind at peace with itself,
secure in its own convictions, and almost disdaining to
offer argument to others in support of the truth which has
become, as it were, a second instinct to itself.

We can only afford room for a simple extract from
" Cecile:" but the passage which we select will siifBciently
illustrate our meaning. It regards the credit due to
modom miracles, when they are attested by proper
authority, and supported by sufficient evidence.

" 'Very posBibly, my dear ; but I do not eiactly see tlio bearing
of r11 this upon our original question. I do not protend that wo aro
not all of us rather too liberal in tbo application of the term super-
atition to our neighbour's belief ; but though no faith admits of ab<
solute demonstration, can we entirely resign our judgment, limited
and insufficient as It may be ?'

" ' Not reajgn, dear Lady Templedale, but incline. Were I to
wilnesa myself any preternatural effaot or result, I own that I should
be very much disposed to conjecture rather that I was myself
deluded or deceived than that the great and constant lavs of nature
were violated. The same most obvious interpretation would apply,
more strongly still, to signs and wonders reported to me on tlia
authority of others ; and yet, I cannot forget, that I may thus bg
led also to explain away, in a precisely similar manner, the very
evidouces upon which the Divine origin of our faith must ever rest.
What shall be my resource against this utter scepticism on one
hand, and the blindest credulity on the other ? I see ao safer aor
surer refuge than that which I claimed for myself in the outlet, tbe
authority of the Church, discerning now, as in the earlier ag«8, be-
tween the impostures and extravagances of man and the tnw
manifestatiouB from above.'

«
«

1851.] Papal Aggression Novek. — Cecile. 627

" ' Yes, my dear ; but we draw a distinction between the inspired
ages and our own.'

'* * The result of which is, I suppose, Lady Templedale, that we
are to disbelieve all miracles that we see, and believe merely in
those that we hoar of.'

" * No, Mrs. Jesuit ; but wo are not called upon to contest those
which were witnessed by an entire population, and ha?e been
recorded by the holiest of men.'

" * As to the opinions of the Jewish population at large,' observed
Cecile, * I fear that they would stand in array rather against than
in favour of our credence. Your other test, the record of holy and
heaven-directed men^ is to my mind the only true one, but in what
does it differ from mine V

** ' Simply, my dear, because we are not at all disposed to place
the same reliance in one of your Priests or Pontiffs, as in the Holy
Apostles or the earlier Fathers of the Church.'

** • That is a distinction that each may draw for himself, but
which he may find it difficult to impose upon others. You were
speaking of the inspired ages just now. Lady Templedale, can you
tell me when they commence and when they end V

* Not exactly, my dear, but I suppose that Churchmen can.'

* It matters not,' resumed Cecile. ' You hold, at all events,
that there were by-gone times whose partial or general belief is
more binding upon us than that of our own. I will not inquire
whether, in those days, signs and wonders were not so universally
expected as to render the beholders less critical, and consequently
more liable to error than ourselves. I will readily admit that some
periods have been more manifestly favoured than others by preter-
natural testimonies of the Divine countenance, but these, we hold
and trust, never have been, and never will be entirely withheld
from the Church of Christ."

" * Yet surely, dear Cecile,' interposed Constance, * the age that
was visited by the Redeemer himself — the Apostles whom he him-
self called, and with whom he held personal communion, may well
be esteemed pre-eminently holy ?'

" ' Pre-eminently, no doubt, my darling child, but not exclusively.
You would not impugn the testimony of Paul, whom you so much
reverence — of two among the Evangelists — of many others -whom
you still designate as Saints, upon that very authority of the Church
which you so indignantly reject in other matters ; you would not, I
say, impugn their testimony because they are not held to have been
so far blessed as to have seen Christ himself. No,' continued
Cecile, in a low musing tone, ' the more I have reflected upon the
fatal differences which have so cruelly estranged us, the more I have
reduced them to one alone as to the origin of all. You believe that
after a certain and undefined period, all spiritual guidance from
above was withdrawn from the Church, while we hold that it was
promised to her and will be vouchsafed to her evermore/

Flf ■

528 Papal Aggression Novels. — Ceclle. [Dec

" ' It may be, my dear ; but &t all events we hare tliua exemjitcd
ourselves from the duty of beli&v'mg in trans abs tan tint ion, the infal-
libility of the Pope, and other mysteriea somowhat too abstruse (at
our homely British understandings."

" ' It is singular, at all events,' remarked Cecile smiling, 'that
the very two wliioh you have specified are those in which we are no
less clearly homo out by the lloly Text tliau by the undeviating
authority of the Church and the etiU uuimpaired assent of the
majority.'

•■ ' Tho two last arguments, my dear. Iiave not, aa yon know,
great weight with us. With respect to the texts that you can
doubtless invoke, you must remember how dangerous it may bo to
interpret too literally what was spoken in an essoutially figurative
tongue.'

" ' No doubt, Lady Tempjedalo, but recollect also, how freely tha
myaterious truths to which you moat reverently adiiere, are dispos-
ed of by others as mere oriental metaphors.'

" ' I must admit, most learned Saint, that we have some little
differences to settle with the Unitarians upon that head ; but thai
is not tho question at issue between us. What I want to hear
more about is the Pope, who, at all events, is tho leading subject,
if ho is not the supreme ruler in Kngland now. Do explain to
me, once for all, to whut extent and under what condittona you
recognize bis infalHhle authority. I dare say that you have some
very plausible and indeed some very philosophicjil eipositJon of
the tenet to offer, if we are to judge from what wo have already
beard.'

"'You have already heard a groat deal too much, dear Ladj
Tompledale, replied Cecile laughing: " it is twelve o'clock, and
surely I may be released now.'" — pp. 2ii — 251.

There is not, perhaps, much novelty in the" principles
put forward in this intereatine passage ; but the manner ia
vigorous and original, and cannot fail to produce its effect.
Indeed, we have been more than once in the reading o£
Cecile, reminded of tho very best passages in Lady
Georgiana Futlerton's admirable tale, Grantley Manor.

We must not conclude, however, without noticing a few
inaccuracies (chiefly of expression,) which occur here and
there in the heroine's theology. She is made to speak,
for example, of the Triple Nature of God ;— although in
circumstances which make it plain that the error is but a
verbal one. And thougih his explanation of the Catholic
theory of mortification is perfectly correct, yet we fear lua
ideas of its practice have been borrowed from some un-
natural and exaggerated model. The incident of the
penitential bracelet, and that of the cutting off the hair,

1851.] The Catholic University. 629

accord but ill witb the generally calm and practical charac-
ter of the heroine^s mind ; and it is difficult to imagine a
Catholic lady, speaking as Cecile is made commonly to
speak, or thinking according to her habitual standard, and
yet betrayed into what one can hardly call by a milder
name than that of vulgar ostentatious enthusiasm, such
as these incidents display.

It may, perhaps, appear ungracious to hint at any draw-
back on the gratification which we have derived from the
perusal of this excellent and well-timed story. But
*' Cecile" is a book which can well afibrd to bear a little
friendly criticism ; and it would be a false delicacy towards
a writer so promising, as its author, not to call his atten-
tion to defects which may be so easily remedied, which,
nevertheless, for the general reader mar in no slight degree
the eflfect of his tale.

Aet. vie. — Address of the Irish Bishops on tlie Catholic University,
Dublin, 1851.

A DOCUMENT, the production of an" individual who
has been wittily described by one of his friends as
"equally ready at half an hour^s notice to build a St. PauFs,
to take the command of the channel fleet, or to superintend
an operation for the stone" — a famous document, written
on a celebrated occasion, has proclaimed to the world that
the Catholic religion tends *' to confine the intellect and
enslave the soul." Even from the prime minister of a
great empire, of accomplishments so universal, and assu-
rance so complete, the accusation strikes one as bold
against the religion of St. Augustine, and St. Thomas, of
Galileo, Malebranches, and Vico, of Bossact and Bene-
dict XIV., of Suarez, Bellarmine and De Lugo. Such as
it is, however, this accusation is daily repeated in one
form or other, implicitly or explicitly, suggested in an
inuendo, or presupposed throughout an argument, treated

[0ec. 1

530 TTie Catholic Vnkersllij.

as self-evident, and acknowledged as a fact sliaraeful, in-
deed, and damning, but too clear for the knight-errantry
of any Catholic to dispute, by ahnost the whole daily press
of England, Lord John Russell has but catered to the
popular feehng, and summed up in half-a-dozen words the
sentiment of modern English journalism, of the floating
mind of the nineteenth century, which oscillates between
profound contempt and bitter hatred of the Catholic faith.
We propose to consider the meaning and the causes of
this accusation, and with the light thence thrown on the
eubject, to proceed to the necessity and vast importa.nce of
the promised Catholic university.

Now this accusation of loving ignorance brought against
the enlightener of the nations, and of fostering slavery,
brought against the bestower of true freedom of heart, and
mind, and will, restored to heavenly harmony, runs up, if
we mistake not, into a difference of First Principles be-
tween Catholic and Protestant. These First Prmciples,
the very bases of onr opinions and judgments, the first
springs of onr actions, and so the key of our moral charac-
ter, are assumed and acted upon by all without proof,
• by an intuition of the mind, and by most men uncon-
sciously, even to the end of their lives. Now what is
knowledge, and what ignorance, what freedom, and what
slavery, of the intellect and moral powers, will depend to
each individual judging on a higher question ; how, that
is, he arranges the various divisions of human intelligence,
and the relations which they bear to each other ; what,
again, he considers, to be the end of civil and religious
polities, and of human life altogether. The lawyer has one
standai'd, and the merchant another ; the artist a third,
and the philosopher a fourth; the theologian one
higher than all these. Nations, again, have a various
moral and intellectual guage. Millions of French
peasants feel an idolatry for the memory of Napoleon,
who decimated tiieir fathers ; Englishmen pay a perh^»
imconscions worship to nmuufactories and railways, and
feel a far deeper interest in the composition of the
steam-engine, than in the nature of the soul ; Spaniards,
on the other hand, measure distances by the rosary,
and salute by an expression of faith in a blessed mys-
tery ; and Italians illuminate in honour not only of iha
earthly sovereign, but the heavenly queen. Even in the
same country and race, a different spirit prevails at dif-

1851.] The Catholic Unitersily. 631

ferent times. Saxon sovereigns laid aside their crowns at
St. Peter's shrine, and the proudest of the Plantagenets
paid homage, as Christians, to his successor; Norman
nobles left land, and wife, and children, to rescue the holy
sepulchre from the infidel. Modern England resents the
exercise of St. Peter's spiritual jurisdiction as an aggres-
sion on temporal sovereignty, and exerts the whole force of
her mighty power to maintain the holjr sepulchre in the
hands of the infidel. Thus race and nation, the habits and
occupations of the mind, modify the standard of all human
things, and so, of course, that by which comparative
knowledge or ignorance, freedom or slavery of the mind,
are estimated.

If, then, we would fairly meet the question, we must
classify the various subjects of human knowJedge, we must
arrange and group the arts and sciences of civilized life,
and specially we must consider the end for which all these
exist and are cultivated, and the relation which they
Beverally bear to that end, and to each other. And as
Catholics and Protestants here judge and^ act upon
different First Principles, we shall take a division made
lon^ before the West was separated into these two con-
flicting parties. We shall go back to a great Catholic
philosopher, theologian, and saint, almost three centuries
anterior to the rise of Protestantism. Certainly he cannot
have had the latter state of opinion in view: he set forth
the train of thought which universally prevailed in his own
day throughout the great Christian people, moulded into
expression by a very profound and exquisitely holy mind.
The division of human knowledge into its various branches,
which we are about to quote, is from St. Bonaventure, and
it has a unity, a simplicity, and a completeness, combined
with the deepest philosophical truth, which we have not
seen equalled in any other arrangement. It occurs in his
small work called '* The Reduction of the Arts to Theo-
lo^,^' and is as follows.

From God, the Fontal Light, all illumination descends
to man. The divine light from which, as from its source,
all human science emanates, is of four kinds; the inferior
light, the exterior light, the interior light, and the supe^
rior light. The inferior light, that of sensitive knowledge,
illuminates in respect of the natural forms of corporeal
objects, which are manifested to us by the five senses. Its
range does not extend beyond the knowledge of sensible

532 Tiie Catholic University. [Dec.

things. The second, or exterioi^ light of mechanical art,
iHaminates in respect of artificial forms. It embraces the
whole circle of those arts which aim at protecting man
from the weather, clothing, feeding, heahng him when sick,
and the theatrical arts directed to his recreation. Thus it
includes all productions of the needle and the loom, all
works in iron, and other metals, stone, and wood ; all pro-
duction and all preparation of food; all navigation and
commerce, which superintend the transit and the exchange
of these ; medicine in its widest sense ; and music, with
the arts belonging to it. Manifold as are the objects of
this light, it is all concerned with artificial productions ; it
touches only one side of human nature; it deals with mau
almost exclusively as an animal; it is directed to sum Jy
his bodily needs, .ind console his bodily infirmities. The
third, or interior Yxghi, is that of philosophical knowledge :
its object is intelligible truth. It is three-fold, for we may
distinguish three sorts of verities, tmth of language, truth
of things, and truth of morals. I. Truth of language, or
rational truth, either makes known the conception of the
mind, which is the function of grammar, or, further,
moves to belief, which is that of logic ; or moves to love
or hatred, which is that of rhetoric ; that is, it is eitlier
apprehensive reason, which aims at congruity, or judica-
tive reason, which is truth; or motive reason, which uses
ornament. II. Truth of things, or rational truth, which
deals with things as to ihQw formal, (i. e. in mediseval lan-
guage, their essential) relations, in regard to matter is
physical, in regard to the soul is mathematical, in regard
to the divine wisdom is metaphysical, and has the province
of ideas. The physical treatment of things has to do with
their generation and corrui)tion, according to their natural
powers and seminal principles: the mathematicsd, with
their abstract forms, as our intellect conceives them: the
metaphysical troats of the knowledge of all entia, which it
reduces to one First Principle, End, and Exemplar, God,
from whom they came forth ; i. e. it deals with things as to
their ideal principles. III. Truth of morals, has for its
object cither the individual, that is, the whole range of
personal duties, which is termed monastic^ or of family
duties, which is termed economic ; or of duties to the state,
which is tQvmQ^ political. Lastly, the fourth, or superior
light, is that of Grace and of the Holy Scripture, which
illuminates in respect of saving truth. It leads to higher

1851 J Tlie Catholic Universily. 533-

objects by manifesting those things which are above reason ;
it descends by inspiration, and not by discovery, from the
Father of lights. The doctrine of Holy Scriptnre, though
one in the literal sense, is trij)le in the spiritual and
mystical sense : allec/oricy in which it teaches what is to
be believed, and relates to the generation and incarnation
of the Word, and this is the study of doctors ; moraly in
which it teaches the rule of life, and this is the subject
matter of preachers; and anagogicy which embraces the
union of the soul with God, and is treated by the contem-
plative.

Thus the fourfold light descending from above has yet
six diflerences, which set forth so many classes of human
knowledge and science. There is the light of sensitive
knowledge, the light of the mechanical arts, the light of
rational philosophy, the light of natural philosophy, the
light of moral philosophy, and the light of Grace and Holy
Scripture. " And so,*' adds the saint, " there are six il-
luminations in this life of ours, and they have a setting,
because all this knowledge shall be destroyed. And there-
fore there succeedeth to them the seventh day of rest,
which hath no setting, and that is, the illumination of
glory. And as all these derived their origin from one
light, so all these sorts of knowledge are directed to the
knowledge of the Holy Scripture, are shut up in it, and
completed in it, and by means of it are ordered to the illu-
mination of eternity. * '

We are persuaded by experience, that the more this ar-
rangement of human arts and sciences is considered, the
more it will be valued. Perhaps all the philosophical errors
of the last three hundred years have been by anticipation
exposed in it. Take, for instance, the multitudinous errors
connected with the question of the origin of our ideas. One
school makes them proceed from the first light alone, and
derives them from the senses. Another from a combina-
tion of the first and third light, or the internal sense.
They have, by common consent, put out of view the
fourth light, which has for its object the supernatural and
the super-intelligible, and which presupposes a power of
intuition on man's part, w^hich may help us as to the
origin of our ideas generally. Above all, what strikes us
in this arrangement of St. Bonaventure is, that through-
out it he considers the circle of human knowledge, and the
objects of which it treats, to be what God created them —

534 Tlie Catholic University^ [Dec.

a universe, a whole, which can only be understood in Him
who is its Beginning and End, the dread Alpha and
Omega of Being, I Am that I Am. And therefore^ we
shall make use of it as a standard whereby to appreciate
the accusation which Protestantism may be understood
as daily bringing by the ten thousand mouths of its hellua
Wjultorum capitum, the Press, against Catholicism, viz. :
that as a system it tends *' to confine the intellect and en-
slave the soul.^' And perhaps in the hasty glance we are
about to take, we may have opportunity to remtirk what
this very loud-tongued accuser itself has done for the
real advancement of knowledge in the human race,
since its champion Luther appeared on the scene.

Now that in which the Europe of the nineteenth century
mainly differs from the Europe of the sixteenth is the pro-
digious cultivation of the mechanical arts, and the success-
ful application to^ these of certain physical sciences, such
as chemistry, which depend on the principle of induction,
and are wrought out by a series of experiments. Wonder-
ful is the advance in these which has been made not merely
in the past hundred years, but in our own generation,
since the peace. The mind of the world seems turned
upon these with an energy which has scarcely before been
witnessed, and the mechanical arts have such manifold
inter-relations, that it is hard to foresee how far an im-
provement in one may affect others. Who, for instance,
can yet tell what will be the effect either on the political or
the religious state of Europe, produced by railway trains
traversing its bosom daily at express speed, or by tne elec-
tric telegraph actually annihilating distance between the
great centres of human thought and action. Isolation of
any particular people, and the evils which follow from it,
seem no longer possible. Again, as we have seen in the
late Exhibition, industry is become no longer national,
but cosmopolitan. Every invention is exposed to an uni-
versal rivalry. What has been conducted successfully to a
certain point by the discovery or improvement of one mind,
is presently caught up by another's, and worked out into
higher results. We should be very ungrateful, certainly,
not to feel what has been done, and is daily doing, to pro-
mote the comfort of all classes, and not least of the poor.
Still the very word suggests wherein this vast and ever-
increasing civilisation lies. It concerns mainly the food,
the clothing, and the covering of man ; his locomotion ;

1851.] The Catholic University. 636

his healing, when sick ; his taste and recreation in gazing
on pleasant and beautiful forms, or hearing melodious
sounds: in short, his bodily wants. It deals with him
mainly as an animal, a buymg and selling, travelling and
voyaging, earth-cutting, iron-working, steam-producing,
gold-seeking animal ; where it uses his reason and high
intellectual powers, as. in the mathematical and physical
sciences, it is yet chiefly with an utilitarian view, for ap-
plication to the mechanical arts. We are^ot underrating
the quantiti/ of light thus diffused ; we arebut remarking
on its quahty, that it is mainly the inferior and the out-
ward light, with so much of the interior, as embraces the
physical and mathematical, but not the higher speculative
and metaphysical sciences. In other words, this busy, rest-
less, ever-advancing, all-engrossing modern world of
thought and action hardly approaches man as a moral
agent, and still less as a spiritual being. It chooses to
put altogether out of consideration that every individual of
the race possesses a something incomparably more precious
than all the discoveries of all the physical and mathemati-
cal sciences, and all the productions of all the mechanical
arts, from the beginning to the end of the world. Cer-
tainly it does not deny that man has a soul, but it treats it
as a truism taught to boys and girls in their catechism,
and disagreably repeated on Sundays at church ; but not
to be thought of during the week by sensible men of busi-
ness. The nineteenth century is one of facts, but this fact,
which outweighs all others, as the ocean does a drop of
water, is not a favourite one with it.

For if, quitting the mechanical arts and the experimen-
tal sciences, we advance and ask what progress has been
made in the higher speculation of the human mind, we
find that this science has fallen with the many into abso-
lute disrepute, from the number of conflicting theories
which have arisen one after the other, each for a time pre-
vailing, and too often paving the way, like the low philo-
sophy of Locke, for the Deism and Pantheism of succeed-
ing minds. Gray's insulting remark, that '^metaphysic
spins her cobwebs, and catches some flics,'* but too faith-
fully represents the general feeling as to that noble science
at present. In short, the modern thinker, as he goes on
from the domain of sensible things, gradually loses his
ifooting, he finds the land-marks removed, and rival geo-
graphers disputing the lie X)f the country ; and if he is a

636 Tlie Catholic University. [Dec.

man of ordinary wisdom and prudence, he stops with the
reflection that life is too short to spend any of it on a science
which has been reduced by the conflicts of its cultivators
into a chaos of uncertaint3\

In the field of morals is the prospect much more en-
couraging ? We are not now speaking of Catholicism and
its authorised teaching, but of that floating, popular, and
cert'iinly most uncatholic mind which charges it with foster-
ini? ignorance ai^d slavery. Wliat is its code of moral laws ?
Who could say ? We have but to look to any morning's
Times for the most unscrupulous lying, the most cruel
calumny, the most barefaced assertion. JBecause it is ano-
nymous, and so beyond punishment, it shows no conscience
— no feeling. It will riot and gloat over the distress
of a nation, and the expatriation of multitudes ; it will call
the solitude peace, and view with complacency the depar-
ture of a people's bone and sinew, if only it can be aeli-
vered from that standard of truth and right which Catho-
licism, in its most suflbring and hampered state, rears in the
world. Where, we may ask, are the moral systems
which in a reign of three hundred years it has produced ?
It is not yet equal to interpreting the decalogue. And if
you would not tempt it to blasphemy, do not put before it
a case of conscience, for nothing does it hate so much
as casuistry. It is its byeword for chicanery and false-
hood.

But oh that proud, that myriad-minded Protestantism,
ranging oyer earth and sea, from China to California, to
gather their treasures for its place and hour of pride, which
lay adoring itself in one long protracted act of self-deifica-
tion, during six months in the glass house, watchinff the
nations brought before its footstool, and saying, f am
their Queen, **I shall not sit as a widow, and I shall not know
barrenness.'' Carry it into a yet higher region than morals,
into the light of Grace and holy Scripture — how miserable
and benighted it appears ! Its heroes here are pygmies.
Their eyes gaze not on these objects. These substances
are too impalpable for their grasp. Here a thought has
often struck us. Certainly no one of her Majesty's sub-
jects made a better or more rational use of the exhibition
than the Queen herself. The most illustrious in each de-
partment of art were at her daily bidding to explain eveiy
new invention, the most complicated machinery, the mam-
fold treasures of the physical world, fi'om its rudest to its

1851.] The Catholic University. 637

most refined productions. We doubt not that they did it
each one well and ably in his sphere. Well, these are
subjects which interest diflFerent classes of people, some
one, and some another; their utility various, their pre-
ciousness in proportion. But other subjects there are of
xuiiversal importance, which cannot be ignored without a
greyious loss by any single human being. Supposing her
Majesty had bethought herself to ask of her several con-
ductors, day after day, a statement of their belief on tliese
four subjects, the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, Original
Sin, and Grace. If the replies given to her under this
supposition could be put down and ticketed, we will ven-
ture to say that no productions of the great exhibition
would have been, to say the least, more curious and in-
structive. Only they would probably have defied analysis
and arrangement. The greatest men in modern art and
science, who would take shame at being ignorant of the
latest discovery in chemistry, the latest theory of geology,
or the latest application of machinery, would probably
show niore ignorance, and, certainly, more variation, on
these momentous subjects, than half-a-dozen children taken
at hazard out of any Catholic school. This is what free
enquiry and the bible sown broadcast over the world have
done in three centuries for the master science of theology,
and the primary virtue of faith.

We admit, then, that in the mechanical arts, and the
physical sciences, in all which concerns the conveniences
of the purely material life, there has been a great advance.
We are thankful for it. The most delicate lady may now
be swept over the country, without fatigue, at forty miles
an hour, in the midst of soft cushions, and surrounded with
books, who, three centuries ago, must have submitted to
pick her way over abominable roads at four miles an hour,
strapped on a pillion to a groom's girdle. But this mate-
rial life of ours is not all : after you have given their utmost
value to all the precious things contained in the great
exhibition, there remains for man, yet, a higher world of
thought : there are the needs of the whole spiritual nature :
there is the science of mind, the science of morals, and the
science of theology : there is truth of language, truth of
things, and truth of morals ; there is that highest light of
all, "which lightens every man that cometh into the
world," the light of the Divine Word. With regard to these,

VOL. XXXI.-No. LXII 15

638 The Catholic University. [Dec.

so far from knowledge having increased, we assert that in
all uncatholic countries, and in each country in proportion
as the spirit of Catholicism has declined, there has been a
retrogression, a diminution of light, feebleness instead of
virility, doubtfulness instead of certainty. We proceed to
state the connection of this with Protestantism.

The wiir of Luther, though seemingly directed against
particular doctrines, was really waged with the principle
of authority itself. After the dust of the conflict was
cleared away, the work which he was found to have accom-
plished was the emancipation of the individual mind from
submission to the general mind of Christendom. The
fabric of Christianity had been raised on an external, objec-
tive basis : its message came from without to the indivi-
dual, answering, indeed, to certain inmost needs, to aspi-
rations and ideas felt within, but independent of these, and
standing over against man with a command and a control
superior to him. The whole system radiated from tiie
Person of God the Word Incarnate : by Him it had been
set up in the world : hj Him it was sustained, and energised
in a living society, divine because the virtue of its Founder
was in it. Luther, on the contrary, proceeded from self:
his own mind, his own judgment, was his standard : dis-
guising this both to himself and others, he professed obedi-
ence to the written word alone : but the interpretation of
this book being left to the individual, the real standard
became the mind or feelings of the individual. Christi-
anity, till then, had owned obedience to its Founder, per-
Eetually as it were incarnate in that society which Himself
ad termed His Body. Luther substituted for this a sub-
jective basis in each believer. Obedience, henceforth, to
an external government became impossible : it was an in-
fringement on the most sacred rights, on the new-found
and highly-prized liberties of the true believer. He was
himself the spiritual man, judging all things, and judged
of none. We are far, indeed, from asserting that Luther
knew what he was about. There was a great and subde
and combining spirit using him as an instrument, who
had formed his plan, a vast and skilful one, though the
agent had none.

Luther's reform was established in England, and before
the end of the century a man of great genius arose, to
carry into the domain of the arts and sciences, for their
restoration, as he asserted, the precise idea which Luther

1851.] The Catholic UniversUy. 539

had applied to religion. The principle of authority, of
tradition, of deduction and development, having been
overthrown in things divine, what more natural than that
Bacon should propose the [principle of induction, that is,
of proceeding from the particular to the universal, as the
foundation of all human science. And as the sciences of
mind, of morals, and of theology, proceed from certain
data, and are built upon deduction, and not induction,
what more natural likewise than that he should throw him-
self on the physical and experimental sciences, as alone,
from his point of view, admitting of stability, certitude,
and progress. He called man away from paths in which,
as authority had been discarded, no landmarks remained,
to an endless and assured progress which they might ascer-
tain for themselves step by step : which would daily recom-
pense them by fresh conveniences, helps, and ornaments
of life. Let them leave their '^ idola theatri/' to which
they had been paying a vain and fruitless homage : all
nature was waiting to pour forth her treasures into the lap of
humanity, if it would cease to meteorize, and rather humbly
search her ample bosom, analyse and weigh her forces, and
direct them to assuage the wants of man : man, that is,
as he was formed from the dust, and to the dust returns.
He had divmed the rising genius of England : he had fore-
cast her horoscope, and determined her empire : as if by a
magic wand he had felt the treasures which yet lay hid in
her mines and mountains, the unsorted elements of a ma-
terial prosperity beyond what the world had yet seen. She
has listened to his call, and his idea has been enshrined in
her heart, has become the centre of her life, and is the
real object of her worship.

The work was not yet complete. There was wanting
one to apply to the science of mind the idea which Lu-
ther had introduced into religion and Bacon into physical
science. There was wanting one to place the starting point
of mental philosophy in the individual man ; in the creature
and not in the Creator ; in the pure analysis of self. That
one was found in Descartes. Discarding the objective
basis on which mental philosophy had hitherto rested, he
attempted to build the most necessary and absolute veri-
ties, the Being of God, and the existence of creatures, on the
internal sense. Cogito, ergo sum. That is, he built belief ou
doubt; he founded the universe on the individual.^ He
did not rest on the tradition which had never perished

540 The Catholic University. [Dec.

from the human race, and had been restored fiill and per-
fect, and unfolded by Christ, with conditions that ensured
its permanence and pmity. He put aside those ideas
which are deposited by the Creator in His creature's mind
before and beyond proof. As Luther's process was analy-
sis applied to religion, so his was the same analysis ap-
plied to the mind. As Luther's process has terminated m
biblical rationalism, and the overthrow of faith by scepti-
cism, so Descartes' process has issued in the denial of
natural truths. The abuse of Bacon's principle has been
shown in its application far beyond the experimental
sciences and mechanical arts, of which it is the proper
instrument, and in the great predominance which it has
given to these over all other studies.

It is not too much to say that the whole tissue of modem
thought and feeling, outside the Catholic Church, and
within it, so far as those are concerned who are not deeply
touched by her spirit, is wrought out of these elements.
The self-sufficiency, the independence, the dislike of autho-
rity, whether in spiritual or civil matters, the reduction of
truth to opinion, the measuring of things by their material
utility, in one word, the predominance of body over spirit^
and of matter over mind, have their root here. Let us see
whether the system of Luther, Bacon, and Descartes, has
contributed to the spread of knowledge truly so called ;
has made men capable of imbibing more or less of those
emanations from the Fontal Light which St. Bonaventore
described above.

I. And first as to the light of Grace and Holy Scripture.
Luther found this diffused in one great religious society,
animated and held together by a common faith. As tne
infant instinctively turns to the mother for the stream
which supplies its life, so every individual soul in that great
family looked direct to the mighty mother of spirits for its
draught of heavenly love, recUned in trust on that unfiUl-
ing bosom, drew support and peace from those eyes of love.
The first work of the reformer was to teach the children
that their trust in their mother was vain and dangerous ;
that they should see, compare, and judge for themselves.
He, indeed, with a strange infraction of his own principle,
tolcl them what they should believe ; he had discoverea it
himself in St. Paul's epistles, which for fifteen centuries
the Church had not understood. By and by Calvin arose
with a fresh doctrine, which he too had gathered firom the

1851.] The Catholic UniienUy. 541

8ame epistles by a like process, and which he enjoined,
propria motu, on all true oelievers, who took the word of
God for their guide. Presently a third appeared, a hard-
headed Swiss, far more thorough-going than either, but
equally imperative in enjoining others to believe as he did,
on the principle of private judgment. The reformation, as
established by Elizabeth in England, was an amalgam of
the doctrines of these three, with a certain residuum of
Catholic truth, without logical connection of parts, as
might be imagined from its parentage, and absolutely de-
void of any spiritual idea by which it could cohere. It had
instead a material soul, and lived on the confiscated lands
of the old Church. Not but what the reformed doctrine, in
a more spirituahzed and explosive state, charged the
atmosphere all around, and burst out in Puritanism, and
Presbyterianism, in Independents and Anabaptists, in
Quakers, and later still, in Wesleyans, and a host of small
sects, which defy analyzing, or even naming, one and all
the true children of that principle of division and dissolution
with which Luther began. More than three centuries have
passed; we see what they have destroyed, may we ask
what they have btiilt up ? Evil, as all theologians tell us,
has no substance ; it is but the negation of good ; and in
accordance with this, the benefactors of mankind may be
known throughout all ages infallibly by one token, that
they have constructed ; and the malefactors of the race as
surely by another, that they have destroyed. Which did
the Reformers ? After three hundred years look at their
work in Germanj^ Switzerland, Scotland, America, and
most of all in England. There, if anywhere, everj out-
ward circumstance seemed to promise permanence and
immutability. A powerful queen clothed their idea with
the richest material body ; determined that it should not
moulder away, she sought to fix its lineaments by embalm-
it in thirty-nine articles ; and she guarded it jealously with
the axe and the rack. Could she rise from her grave,
what would she behold? The favourite creation of her
genius,which she had planted throughout the land interwov-
en with the whole fabric of the constitution, married to the
nobUity and gentry, surrounded with the dread array of law,
in sj)ite of alj. these scarcely held together by means of a foul
and ignominious lie. She would see her successor in that
spiritual headship forced to declare that the very first doc-
trine of the heavenly Ufe was yet unsettled, that her clergy

542 Tlie Catholic University. [Dec-

espoused opposite sides, and that, in spite of all material
ties, the only means to maintain them in one outward com-
munion was, to sanction their teaching contradictory
opinions on baptism. If they differ about the beginning,
how much more about the course and maturity of the
heavenly life. Amid the ten thousand volumes on sacred
subjects, which in three hundred years the learned leisure
of that richly-endowed society has produced, we ask in vain
for a science of theology. The so-called divines are all at
issue with each other; they are but agreed in rejecting
Catholicism, which is a system. But they have none
of their own. Incredible aa this may seem, it is true;
and what is yet more incredible is, that they seem
to have no sense of this deficiency. They do not see
the connection of one doctrine with another ; they do
not need entirety or wholeness in their teaching; great
gaps disturb them not ; incohcrencies do not disarrange
their notions. They began with the text of Scripture, and
with the text of Scripture they end. It is to them as a
huge quarry of fine marble, which they have never wrought.
Or rather, perhaps, the glorious temple which the Church
had reared their ancestors with sacrilegious hands tore
down, and they are still gazing on the ruins ; or, where
fragments of the walls are- still standing, the most that
they do is to raise a shed against them, light a flickering
fire with the logs of the old roof-beams, and shelter them-
selves with the name of Catholic principles.

But now we may surely ask in this, the most important
and primary of nian's needs, a guide to lead him tnrou^h
his forty years* pilgrimage to the land of promise, is tne
light of Grace and Holy Scripture diminished or augment-
ed ? Is there knowledge, where all principles are disputed ?
Can there be faith, where no divine authority is re-
cognised? Such, during three hundred years, has been
the work of Protestantism, a simple undoing ; what in the
same period has been that of Catholicism? That great
body of truth which it had when Luther arose, it has still,
whole and unimpaired. It has been, moreover, perpetually
solving doubts, pcrfectionating details, developing conse-
quences of truths before received, gathering a harvest of
saints, establishing a multitude of holy and self-denying
congregations, collecting itself up more and more in its
supreme head, and feeling that its strength lies in the chair
of Peter. Its children more than ever trust their mother.

1851.] The Catholic University. 543

Faith leads them to knowledge, and love preserves har-
mony between the intellect and the will.

It is especially, after considering the facts of the last
three centuries, from this point of view that we recommend
the thought of (with all his wanderings) a great modern

})hilosopher to the author of the charge against Catho-
icism, that it tends ''to confine the intellect, and
enslave the soul/' " Those superficial minds, who
regard the Catholic as a slave, because he is subject
to a rule, do not perceive that this rule, which is nothing
else but truth itself, is the foundation of liberty. The
Catholic rule is the principle which prevents the human
mind from diminishing truth, and therefore, from restricting
the limits of the field in which it can expatiate. In fact, as
man cannot step on vacuity or nothingness, where ground
fails to plant the foot upon, the only arena in which genius
can exercise itself, and display its powers, is that of truth.
Thus the law which preserves the true, as the vital ele-
ment and the home of the mind, is as necessary to philo-
sophic liberty, as that which forbids governments to
alienate territory ^ is to the liberty and security of
states. '' (Gioberti, Introduction to Study of Philosophy,
b. i. chap. 8.)

2. From religious principles, let us proceed to political.
Luther laid down that the individual judgment, conscience,
and feelings, formed the rule of belief. Locke and Rous-
seau applied this to politics, and forth came the grand
dogma of the sovereignty of the people, the instrument of
subversion and destruction in modem times. All power is
from on high, said the ancient Catholic tradition; all

Sower is from below, says the new political Protestantism,
f man had a right to judge of Revelation, to admit so
much as he pleases, and to modify what he dislikes in a
religion coming to him with the strongest sanction from
without, who can deny to him a similar right in respect
of governments, the best and most lawful of which has
only an indirect commission from God, while the title of
His Church is of direct divine institution ? It was a pro-
blem quickly worked out in practice, and first of all in
that goveiTiment which had usurped the rights of the
Church. Charles the First paid the forfeit of his head for
the crime of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. The spirit
which established the Reformation overthrew the mo-
narchy. Its ultimate triumph in England remains to be

544

The Catholic Vmieniti/.

fDcc.

chronicled by posterity; but who can (loiil)t that the oM
English constitiitioQ is gone to seed, and that we are ad-
vancing with the smoothness and the speed of a river ahovo
the cataract, to the headlong fall and the deep pool of demo-
cracy? But in Europe generally, this principle, making,
that is, the individual the starting point in religion nnd
in politics, bom in Luther, perfected by Locke and Rous-
seau, is agitating the several nations, and everywhere
working to overthrow established powers, till society itself
13 struggling for mere existence. It is a principle of pure
anarchy and dissolution, proceeding from the individual to
the family, and from the family to the nation, and tainting
in all al'dce the first springs of obedience. It inverts the
primary rule of obligation, on which not only civil govem-
inont, but morality itself, is founded. For whereas, the
whole order of the universe springs from that absolute
right which God aa Creator possesses over all His crear
tures, the correlative of which is an absolute duty in nian
to God, and relative duties to his fellow-men as children of
a common paient, out of which relative duties relative
rights between man and man spring, so that there are
four links in this chain which is attached to the very throne
of God : on the contrary, the principle of Luther and of
Locke in reUgion and in politics, and by consequenco in
morality, begins from the bottom, and has accordingly no
basis ; for man has no rights whatever towards his fellow-
creatures without pre-Bupposing a Creator, and no rights
towards God at all, but duties only. Such then is the
light which this great principle of Protestantism — which
may be termed, indeed, its beginning, middle, and eiid^ —
has shed upon human obligation, as it touches the imlivi-
dual, the family, or the state. For its fruits look through
Europe at present, which is become one huge battle-fieW,
between the old traditionary principle of power from on
high, and the new revolutionary watchword of power from
below. The Church, as she was herself the great exein-
iJarand moat perfect type of the former— usher chief in Sl
Peter's chair is the representative of hor incarnate Lord,
and rules by direct commission from Him — so had she in
every European conntiy fostered and gradually educated
civil polities resting on the like basis. She had first sown
and then developed in them the seeds of freedom, built not
on imaginary rights of man, but on absolute duties towards
God } freedom which, therefore, had a basis as stroug og

1861.] Tlie Catholic Univef'siiff. 545

the primary obligation of morality. This she had done,
and all Europe was advancing forward peaceably to the de-
velopment of these free constitutions, when the Reforma-
tion violently arrested the process, and threw back some
countries on despotism for the maintenance of order, while
it hurried others forward into a false freedom based upon
anarchy, for such indeed is power which springs from the
individual. ^ As the Church contains the most perfect form
of monarchical power, her constitution being the direct in-
spiration and habitual in- working of the Incarnate Word,
so she sustained the first and most vehement assault of the
dissolving principle ; which having wreaked its full violence
on her, has gone on to attack and corrupt all tem-
poral governments. We are witnessing, in political an-
archj[, and moral socialism, the denouement of religious
individualism.

3. After religion and politics comes the appreciation of
ends, which Protestantism has set up among us. And
here, to listen to it, one might well imagine that Christi-
anity had come into the world to promote civilisation ; as
if a pleasant and peaceable intercourse between man and
man, the development of commerce, the accumulation and
distribution of wealth, discoveries in physical science, the
diffusion of conveniences, the easing the wheels of society,
the making this world, in fact, the home, and this life
the object of man, were the grand end which the Lord of
all had in view in giving Himself a sacrifice for His crea-
tures. One would think as much as this might have been
done at less cost. So desirable is it to forget " the fire'*
that was to be kindled and " the sword'* that was to be
sent on earth ; so acceptable to put out of mind the pro-
phecy that •* nation should rise against nation, and king-
dom against kingdom,'* and that ** earthquakes and pes-
tilences" should bear witness to that broken moral order,
without the restitution of which nothing is good in the
counsels of God. The key-note of Christianity is self-
sacrifice; the key-note of civilisation is self-enjoyment:
no wonder that if you measure the Church's utility by the
standard of civilisation she is judged to fail in her work.
Now a main work of Protestantism was to destroy all
that operation of the Church which bore witness to its
superhuman charity ; the sacrifice of self in works of mercy
which entail privation of the domestic life became odious
to those who placed their supreme good in that domestiq

646 Tlie Catholic University. [Dec*

life. That wonderful habit of mind, which is exhibited to
us in manifold expression, but always the same essence, in
the lives of the saints, is matter of simple unbelief to Pro-
testants, at the bottom of which is a still stronger dis-
like. Why turn society upside down ? why shake off the
dust of the world from your feet ? why deny father and mo-
ther, brother and sister, wife and child ? why treat the body-
as a wild beast, and torment the mind ? There is one vision
ever before the eyes of such men, which these complainers
see not ; the vision of a cross, and One thereon raised
against a black sky. There is a voice ever in their eai's^
Take up your cross, and follow Me. On the other hand^
there is (juite a different order of things very attractive
and winnmg in its way. Comfortable homes, easy loco-
motion, abundance of food, bridges, and railways, and
canals, and docks, and ships, without end, powerful fleets,
vast colonies, a world-wide empire, the fair array of a well-
ordered government, the charms of a well-chosen society.
Now both of these cannot be ends at once to the same
persons. And surely their judgment of all things will be
very different in proportion to which end they take. What
is knowledge in the estimation of the one, will be igno-
rance to the other. There is no doubt whatever, that the
latter will charge the former with ** confining the intellect,
and enslaving the soul.*'

4. And this brings us to our fourth point, the know-
ledge which is in request, the arts and sciences which are
in estimation, at the present day ; and so, the education
which is most valued, and the distinction which is most
coveted. Theological truth, then, in consequence of the
fundamental principle of Protestantism, having become a
bone of contention between an infinite number of sects
and private opinions, which, with the Bible all the while
in their hands, are agreed upon nothing, from the dogma
of the Blessed Trinity, to the existence of sin — the only
way for any peace at all which such a society has discover-
ed is to set this sort of truth aside altogether, to vote it a
bore, and perseveringly ignore it. Next, moral truth, as
might be expected, and the grounds of moral obligation,
are plunged into almost equal uncertainty. The whole
theory of morals, as to the individual, the family, and the
state, is unsettled by the unsettlemcnt of religion. The
next highest class of studies, coming, it will be re-
membered, under S. Bonaventure^s truth of thinfft, is the

1851.] TIi€ Catholic University. 547

science of the mind, Metaphysics, truth accordinpf to our
ideal conceptions ; and here, thanks to the application of
the one Protestant principle, proceeding from the indivi-
dual, whether it be the inward or the outward sense, no-
thing is determined, all is contradiction, between rival
schools, and so the science is in the utmost disrepute. So
that it is in the physical and mathematical sciences alone
that Protestantism finds certitude, and material utility
being its standard, it is in tlie application of these to the
ornamental, the culinary, the medical, the locomotive, and
the commercial, arts, that it places the grandeur and
the progress of a nation, the eminence of individuals, the
good done to the world, and the needs of education. We
would indeed assign no scanty meed of praise to these
sciences and arts. We are not disposed to underrate the
value of the steam-engine or the uses of chemistry ; but it
is something too much to prefer physical before moral and
religious truth. In a late article, the Times contrasted
the thanks given to Sir Joseph Paxton for the invention of
the glass house, and those bestowed on Mr. Stephenson
for the tubular bridge, " objects,^' as it said, " truly Ca-
tholic,'^ with those given to Dr. Newman for his dis-
courses ! That is, it could appreciate the curious conve-
nience of the building, and the wonderful mechanism of
the bridge, but a volume on the Being of God, and the
destinies of man, was entering, in fact, on forbidden
ground, stirring up the odium theologicum, dividing fa-
milies, thrusting pins, with their points outwards, in the
soft cushions of our railway carriages, and troubling
that physical order, which the Times alone recognises, by
the introduction of miracles. How thoroughly odious to
such a spirit would have been the personal presence of
the Divine Lawgiver Himself, when the investigation of
His sublimest laws, and the recognition of His superna-
tural operation, is so distasteful ! But the year has fur-
nished us with the strongest instance of that absolute ido-
latry of the material arts which forms the temper of our
age. Day after day, for six long months, the whole en-
thusiasm of the public press has been lavished on the
great Exhibition. The account of the concluding scene
in the Times of October 13th may fitly be termed the apo-
theosis of matter. We quote it here as the best illustra-
tion of our subject which can be given ;

548 The Catholic University. [Dec.

*' Oa Saturday the great Exhibition closed its wonderful career,
and the public took their last farewell of its splendours. After
being open for five months and eleven days, and concentrating in that
time a larger amount of admiration than has probably ever been
given within the same period to the works of man, the pageant ter-
minates, the doors of the Crystal Palace no longer yield to the
open sesame of money, and in a few days hence thousands of hands
will be busily engaged in removing all those triumphs of human
skill, and those evidences of natural wealth, which the world was
assembled to behold. It was natural that such an event should be
regarded by all who witnessed it with no ordinary degree of emo-
tion. Feelings of gratified curiosity, of national pride, and of
enthusiasm at the public homage paid to industrial pursuits, were
tempered with regret that a spectacle so grand and unique should
ever have a termination. It is only when we are about to lose
them, that we begin to find the value of objects which have insen-
sibly become endeared to us. As with the building, so it was also
with many of the works of art, the treasures of wealth, and the
examples of ingenuity which it contained. The • Amazon,' Van der
Ven's *Evo,' Strazza's *Ishmael,* the two French bronzes, and
many other contributions of the highest artistic merit were, for the
last time, to bo gazed at by the admiring multitude. ♦ • #

*' It was drawing near five o'clock, when from the top of Keith and
Co.'s Spitalfiolds silk trophy, the whole nave, east and west, the
area of the transept, and the galleries, might be seen packed with a
dense mass of black hats, through which, at intervals, a struggling
female bonnet emerged here and there into light The vast multi-
tude had now become stationary, and were evidently awaiting, in silent
but intense excitement, the last act of a great event, immortal in the
annals of the nineteenth century. It was a most solemn and affecting
scone such as has rarely been witnessed, and for which an oppor-
tunity cannot soon again arise. Words cannot do it justice, and
fail utterly to convey the mystery and grandeur thus embodied to
the eye. Let the reader fancy what it must have been to compre-
hend within one glance 50,000 people assembled under one roof, in
a fairy palace, with walls of iron and glass, the strongest and the
most fragile materials happily and splendidly combined. Let him,
if he can, picture to himself that assemblage in the centre of that
edifice, filled with specimens of human industry and natural wealth,
from every civilized community, and the remotest corners of the
globe. Let him tax his imagination to the uttermost, and still
beyond the material magnificence of the spectacle presented to him
— ^let him remember that the stream of life on which he looks
down, contains in it the intellect and the heart of the greatest me-
tropolis, and the most powerful empire in the world — that strong
feelings, such as rarely find utterance in a form so sublime, are
about to find expression from that multitude, and that in heathen
times, even when liberty was still a new power upon the earth, the

1851.] The Catholic University. 649

▼oice of the people was held to be the voice of God. Not only the
days, but the minutes of the Great Exhibition were numbered, and
the first sign of its dissolution was given by Osier's crjstal foun-
taia. Just before five o'clock struck, the feathery jet of water
from its summit suddenly ceased, and the silence of the vast assem*
blage became deeper and more intense. The moment at last came.
Mr. Belshaw appeared at the west corner of the transept gallery on
the south side, bearing a large rod flag in his hand. This he dis-
played as the clock struck, and instantly all the organs in the build-
ing were hurling into the air the well-known notes of the national
anthem. At the same moment the assembled multitudes uncover-
ed ; and those who witnessed this act of loyalty from an advanta-
geous position, will long remember the effect which it produced
upon their minds. Where just before nothing was visible but a
mass of black hats stretching away until lost iu the distance, im-
mediately there appeared a great sea of up-turned animated faces,
and to the solemn silence of expectancy succeeded a volume of
sound in which the voices of the people were heartily joined. These
cheers were continued for several minutes, and when the last of
them died away there passed over the entire building, and with
an effect truly sublime, a tremendous rolling sound, like that of
thunder, caused by thousands of feet stamping their loyalty upon
the boarded floors. Under this demonstration every part of the
edifice trembled, and, as it swept from west to east, many an
eye was raised with anxiety to the girders and pillars, which in
long perspective were stretched out before them. And now tho
time had arrived for the death peal of the Exhibition to be rung
out. Some ono hung out from the gallery of the transept a piece
of calico, on which was inscribed the well-known passage from
Shakspeare's Tempest, ho, : —

" * Our revels now are ended ; these our actors.
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air ;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, —
Yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve.
And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded.
Leave not a rack behind.' '*

Thus the spirit of this age describes the closing of the
Great Exhibition, in language which a mediseval Chris-
tian would have thought more appropriate to the last
judgment. Let us give, indeed, their due honour to indus-
try, patience, invention, artistic skill, and genius of every
kind, but remember, withal, that a single act of moral
virtue, of self-sacrifice, in the least intellectual of His

550 Tlie Catholic University. IDec.

rational creatures, is of more value in the sight of God
than all which this Exhibition contained. ^ The world, it
seems, thinks far otherwise, and this prodigious vanity fair
is to be the turning point of its future destinies, and to
convert first England, and then the whole earth into a
manufactory of utilitarianism, and realise, we suppose, the
scheme which was frustrated at Babel. For in the same
article we read : —

" The second issue which the Exhibition raises, viz., bow best
we should proceed in the industrial career which lies before us, has
hitherto been chiefly dealt with in the various schemes for the
appropriation of the surplus. Some think that we must effect a
radical change in our educational system — that we must substitute
living science for dead literature, and distribute the honours and
rewards of life in channels where they may fructify to the use of
the commonwealth instead of being limited to the learned profes-
sions, the military and naval services, and the residents of our uni-
versities. To others this seems a slow and a doubtful process.
They advocate, therefore, the principle of association as the best
for securing industrial progress. They say, bring the leading men
in manufactures, commerce, and science, into close and intimate
communication with each other, — establish an intelligent super-
vision of every branch of production by those most interested and
likely to be best informed, — have annual reports made in each
department, and let the whole world be invited to assist in carrying
forward the vasi scheme of human labour, which has hitherto been
prosecuted at random and without any knowledge or appreciation
of the system which pervaded it. The public must eventually
decide this contest of opinions, and their verdict, whichever alter-
native it inclines to, or whether or not it embraces both, will not
only determine one of the most important questions that the Exhi-
bition has raised, but prove fraught with the gravest consequences
to the welfare of this country, and of mankind at large."

That Divine Being who appears here to be entirely for-
gotten will, we are confident, prove strong enough, and
prudent enough, to disconcert this Utopia of commercial
prosperity, and to guard for the moral agents whom He
has created and redeemed some better termination of their
existence, some higher object for their toil. We njay now,
then, sum up what has been done for the highest interests
of humanity by Protestantism in the last three hundred
years.

1. At the commencement of that period there was one
idea thoroughly rooted in the mind of Christendom, which
the course of fifteen centuries, with all its revolutions of em-

1861.] Tl^ Catholic University. 551

pires and change of races had preserved, and made, as it
were, the anchor of the human race. It was that the Very
Truth and the Very Goodness had come into the world, as-
suming a human form, had published all saving doctrine
to men, and not only so, but had set up in His own person
the beginning of a human society, to which the guardian-
ship of that doctrine was entrusted ; that for this very pur-
pose He had promised to it a perpetual indwelling pre-
sence, and an unseen spiritual guidance, which should
never fail, but overmaster human weakness, and resist the
innate corruption of man. By belonging to this society,
hy obeying what it commanded, and by oelieving what it
attested, man was to be saved ; it was God's witness to
man which could utter no falsehood, for the Spirit of truth
was with it and in it. The great work of Protestantism
had been to scatter to the winds this idea; to destroy this
anchorage of humanity amid the storms of life ; to breathe
<iistrust of this divine maternity ; to leave, in short, man to
himself, so that he should receive of this body of heavenly
doctrine just so much as approved itself to his individual
judgment. A great gift, indeed, to the child to teach him
that he had no mother ; a precious boon to the race, to
instruct it that the corruption of Adam had, after all, been
too profound and ineradicable for God Himself to over-
come, and that after He had set up His tabernacle among
men, humanity remained as dark and solaceless as it was
before. As time had corrupted the tradition of truth given
to Adam, to Noah, and to Abraham, so too had it fared
with the revelation of the Divine Word Himself. And so,
as far as men are Protestants, they have lost this idea.
They think it fanaticism to entertain it, and bigotry to
impose it on others.

Christendom was once a great federative republic, of
which Christ's vicar was the head, and common father.
The national distinctions of its several parts were but acci-
dents in the higher and essential existence which they had
as one Christian people, with a common faith, a common
hope, a common charity. Protestantism has done its
utmost to destroy this republic. What would it substi-
tute ? What is it even now proclaiming to us as the day-
star of peace risen on the world ? A trade confederation,
which is to join all nations. Catholic and Protestant, Jew,
Turk, Infidel, and Heretic, on a principle whose simplici-
ty equals its sublimity and its universality. Buy in the

552 The Catholic Unwersity. [Dec.

cheapest market, sell in the dearest. This is the palmary
discovery of the year 1851. Free trade instead of the
Catholic Chnrch; the Crystal Palace for the shrine of the
Apostles. The Peace Association undertakes what the
Prince of Peace has failed to do.

2. Christendom, too, had one faith, but Protestantism
having great objections to that, and having pulled it all to
pieces, has Hkewise a substitute. Leave the question of
religion to the private consciences of men, and the ministers
of the denominations they may severally choose. Teach
them no longer '* sectarian,** but " Catholic** truths^ not
infractions of the laws of nature by miracles, but exempli-
fications of them in hydraulics and pneumatics. Neither
heretic nor Turk denies that the three angles of a triangle
are equal to two right angles ; that the law of gravitation
governs the solar system ; th»at Julius Caesar was a great
commander; that Davy*s discoveries in chemistry, and
Cuvier!s in zoology, have benefitted the world. Teach
men, therefore, mathematics and astronomy, history,
chemistry, botany, and zoology, which they are agreed
upon, and leave them to themselves on morals and reli-
gion, where they are not agreed. '^ Some think that we
must effect a radical change in our educational system —
that we must substitute living science for deaa literon
tare.'* A theory built on the bones of the Mammoth or the
Ichthyosaurus is living science ; one resting on the dic-
tum, " In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth,** or that other, *' The Word was made flesh, and
dwelt among us,** is dead literature. In three hundred
years Protestantism has produced at least three hundred
interpretations of the latter. Who would be so unreason-
able as to expect it to teach any one of them to the exclu-
sion of the rest ? This idea struck the great administra-
tive genius of the age. He modestly insinuated it in his
address to the Tamworth reading-room ; but he saw that
it was worthy of a wider application ; he discerned in it a
panacea for the wrongs of a nation, and upon it he found-
ed the Queen*s Colleges in Ireland.

3. But it is not only the whole system of objective dog-
matic truth which Protestantism has reduced to the condi-
tion of a private opinion ; not only morals, which it has so
messed and mauled that it can entrust no professor to
teach them. On these two depends the cultivation of the
inner and more secret life of the soul. And this it leaves a

1851.] The Catholic University. 553

wilderness. By its own principles it cannot enter there.
The imagination may revel in tne most dangerous sins of
thought ; it meddles not with them. Here is a science, one
of the utmost conceivable importance, one of universal
application, of primary necessity, which it totally ignores.
The science which ^ produces saintliness is part of its
dead literature. It is very true that without the mother it
cannot have the children; and as the justification it
teaches remains to the end external, the daily and incessant
task of purification which Catholicism imposes may be got
rid of altogether, or, at least, left to every one to perform
unaided. Here, then, it passes over, untouched and unre-
lieved, the worst of all slaveries, a moral slavery, which
likewise overclouds the intellect on all matters which
rise above the material Hfe. And here it is especially that
since the rise of Protestantism the great Catholic mother
has put forth her superhuman strength and heavenly com-
passion. Here it is that she has descended into the
depths of humanity, and while redeeming multitudes from
the dominion of former vices, and restoring them to the
divine kingdom, whom a miserable apostate system suf-
fers to perish as the helots of crime, she has formed others
to the most perfect resemblance of their Lord, and wrought
into them the divine lineaments with such skill and power,
that perhaps the ages of martyrdom can scarcely produce
their Ignatius, their Philip Neri, or their Theresa.

4. Education is felt by men of all religious and political
parties to be the great question of the day, which is to de-
termine not merely the well-being, but the very existence
olF society in the next generation. And among all these
parties, too, there is felt a great zeal, an earnest desire to
improve and extend education. And yet equal to the im-
portance of the question is felt to be its difficulty. Why is
it that, with the best will in the world, no scheme can be
contrived by one sect of Protestants which will satisfy even
another sect of the same Protestants ? Why is the national
society for the education of the poor divided in itself, and
yet at daggers-drawn with the committee of council ? Why
is every forthcoming scheme looked upon by dissenters
with bitter suspicion ? From Mr. Denison to Mr. Fox the
same difficulty stares them in the face; they are not
agreed upon any system, of religious or moral truth to he
taught. As there is no authority on earth to which all

VOL. XXXI.-No. LXII. 16

654

The Catholic UnhersUtj.

[Ded

bow, tlio opinion of every man is as good as his neigh-
bour's, or, at least, be thinks so. It is not merely with us,
but with themselves, that Protestants are completely at
iasue here. Human ingenuity cannot devise a plan which
shall satisfy at once churchmen and dissenters ; and the
notable scherae of the state , giving a merely secular educa^
tion, and banishing religion into the back-ground, is but a
desperate attempt to find a way out of the wood, l\v sacri-
ficing the intractable element altogether. Now this diffi-
culty, which spreads like a moral paralysis over llie frame
of society, frustrating zeal and sell-denial, is entirely the
making of Protestantism. To Catholics it does not exist.
On the most important of human concerns — on the element
which enters into all human knowledge — which pervades all
arts and sciences, and is the main instrument of education
— we are of one mind. Our religion is not our hindrance,
but the very pillar of our strength. The state Dalilah is
but begging of Sampson to surrender the secret source of
his power, when it asks ua to lower ourselves to the coadi-
tion of those who have no faith and no dogmas, to whom
baptism is a bone of endless contenlaon, and the apostolical
succession a disputed point, maintained by curate, snp-
pressed by canon, but scouted by primate. We are not in
the sad condition of those who ai-e " ever learning, but
never able to come to the knowledge of the truth," We
need not take refiige in physical science from the perpe-
tual aberrations of the spiritual mind. We are not reduced
to exclude the chapel from our educational structures,
because we are not agreed upon a worship to be offered m
it. Before we yield this great point, let Protestantisni
rather own its real misery, tliat it is but a mere agent of
dissolution, it can but lop off one after another the divine
gifts bestowed upon the Church, it can but pervert, dislo-
cate, or misrepresent her system, and narrow the inheri-
tance of divine truths ; it cannot build one stone npoa
another in Christian life, fi^ra the child's iniUatiou to the
rest of the departed. It begins with doubt, and ends in
search ; bow can it educate ? One must possess truth be-
fore one can impart it. " Buy the truth, and sell it not/'
it is written. We have bought it, with three centuries of
persecution, material and moral. We have it, full and
complete, the source of future growth and expansion illiou- ,
table. Many who were once its enemies have come to us,
won by its celestial beauty, and humbly bowiug down to

1851.] TJie Catholic University. 555

its yoke. Shall we now surrender one atom of it to those
who already fear its approach, who so dread its power that
they have taken up the discarded arms of material force,
and, powerless to persuade, have descended once more to
persecute ? Who seeing the moral dissolution of their own
establishment, think to arrest the progress of Catholicism
by a bill of pains and penalties.

5. Withdraw from the world the Christian idea, that is,
a society divinely-constituted, to which the possession of
spiritual and moral truth is guaranteed, by incorporation
with which man is taken into the circle of a higher exis-
tence, brought under divine influences, and taught to la-
bour through the course of this passing life for a superior
inheritance ; withdraw this, and the hopes, the desires,
the passions of men become fixed on material wealth, as
the standard of this world without reference to the next.
Now, the alienation of men from the study of spiritual
and moral truth, the universal extolling of the physical
sciences, and disproportionate cultivation of the mechani-
cal arts, as improved by the former, and ministering to all
the comforts and conveniences of life, prove to what an
extent this has been done. The state of England appear-
ed of late to a thoughtful foreigner a picture of Rome
under the later emperors. Another eminent, though misguid-
ed writer of the present day says : '^CiviUzation, which termi-
nates in corruption, when improvements in sensible things
bear the palm over moral progress, and facts over ideas, pro-
duces ordinarily a species of speculative and practical sensu-
alism, which differs little fi:om impiety.'^'^ This seems ex-
actly to express our state. A boundless capitalised wealth,
ramifying over the world, evermore multiplying and repro-
ducing itself, stimulating and rewarding all manner of
artificial inventions, with just so much religion as does not
interfere with the enjoyment of all this, constitutes what
may be called the naturalism of society. This spirit is
ever repeatiwg the boast of Augustus, that he found Rome
of brick, and left it of marble. Nero went further still in
his house of gold ; nor looked he with greater scorn on the
blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, when brought before
him as Jewish vagabonds, preaching among the gorgeous
palaces and temples of Rome the doctrine of the Cross,
than looks this modern spirit now on any religion which

* Gioberti.

55C Tlie Catholic UniversHy, [Dec.

teaches suffering, the necessity of a definite belief, and the
supremacy of dogmatic truth. It accepts the Bible, but
on one condition, to interpret it for itself. Its great cities
are crowded with practical infidels ; its country villages,
with the old churches of another faith in their centre, and
a religion without worship, celebrated one day in the week,
have relapsed into Paganism, yet it proclaims itself as the
humaniser of the world, the home of knowledge and liberty
— a liberty of the fallen will, a knowledge which excludes
the Being of God and the spiritual nature of man from its
objects.

6. And this spirit, too, has found itself an organ, which
exactly represents its interests, an organ all-nowerful, as it
thinks, in its forces, universal in its range. ^ The new ruler
of our modern world is Journalism. Within the last fifty
years, it has shot up among us to the stature of a giant.
What was once the mere communication of news, threatens
to absorb into itself all powers of civil government ; to
dictate decisions on all questions, religious, social, politi-
cal, artistic, literary ; to wield all moral influences in the
world, and exercise over man's inmost nature a despotism
far more crushing than that of Russian serfdom. Organic
changes in our written constitution, are but the reflection
of its will. In France, the United Kingdom, and the
United States, it is neither kin/;, parliaments, presidents,
ministers, nor congresses, which rule, but newspapers.
The daily press is the pretorian guard of modern states,
who give and take away an empire to which that of old
Rome was limited in range ; for no part of our complex
modem life, no taste, nor science, nor morals, nor reli-
gion, are free from its prying search,^ and imperious deci-
sion. The tyrant is everywhere. It is not an era which

fTomises peace or stability, but perpetual change ; a level-
ing and superficial literature ; a liberalism which hates all
truth as exclusive ; and lynch law for all those who do not
obey this new voice of the people.

It needs not the gift of prophecy to see that the Duke's
question as to our parliamentary reform twenty years ago,
'* How will His Majesty's government be carried on ?'*
will merge under this new power into a larger one, " How
will society be carried on?'

7. Thus we find, in all the different phases of society,
tlie substitution of the human kingdom, whose end is na-
tionality, for the divine kingdom, which is the unity of

1851.] The Catholic University/. 557

Catholicism. And, indeed, those who do not apprehend
the divine kingdona, mnst almost of necessity fall back on
the human or national as the highest object. Citizenship,
by the law and need of his nature, man must have ; if it
be not the heavenly, it will be the earthly : civitas Dei,
or civitas Diaholi, In the rejection of the idea of the
Church, and with it of dogmatic truth, in the leaving the
inner life an uncultivated waste, in reducing education to
instruction in those arts and sciences which deal with na-
ture and matter, but reach not spirit, and so giving over
the higher part of man to the empire of chance or self-
will, or individualism, in weighing all things by the stan-
dard of wealth, and the effect produced on material conve-
nience, and in that dominion of journalism which is the
expression of all these, we see the recession of society
back into the status of ancient paganism ; that is, it takes
up with regard to the Church of Christ, with all its divine
gifts and privileges, summed up in one word, infallibiUty,
the position which ancient heathen society held towards
that body of primitive tradition which originally came
down from God. Modern heresy corrupts the Christian
tradition, as paganism did the primitive.^ The past year
has given us, in the Great Exhibition, an instance of what
this society admires, loves, and values, of the unity which
it can conceive, that is, the nations of the earth connected
by increasing trade and reciprocal interests, and the satis-
fying of man's sensuous nature, by all artificial produc-
tions. The same year has given us, too, as remakable an
instance of what this society cannot conceive — the unity
which it is determined not to acknowledge. The cry
against the Catholic hierarchy, from beginning to end,
was, that it invaded the sovereignty of the nation, that is,
the nation would not open its eyes to the existence of a
spiritual jurisdiction, or the thought of a kingdom of souls.
It reproduced, unknowingly, the feeling of the old heathen
emperor, that a Priest sitting in St. Peter's see was as
little to be tolerated as a competitor on the throne. The
Prime Minister argued with much simplicity, that it was
the exclusive pretensions of the Supreme Pontiff which
gave offence ; if he would but admit that Catholics were
one of the many Christian sects, he w6uld meet with no
opposition, but live on sufferance like the rest. This is
the head and front of our offending, in the reign of Victo-
ria as of Diocletian, that we claim to be a kingdom, _ For

558 77'e Catholic UnireniUj. [Dec.

being a king our Lon:! was cmcified, and the workl is ever
reproducing against His mystical body the acctisatiuu and
the punishment. And so Catholicism " confines the inte-
lect and enslaves the soid," by setting before it a great
circle of supernatural truth which it could not discover for
itself, and cannot subject to itself by analysis, but must
be content to receive and adore. Catholic ignorance is
the preference of moral and spiritual to physical truth :
and Catholic slavery the tenet that man must suSer
before he can enjoy j and that the Cross is the measure of
the world.

11. The second proposition which wc have to maintain
follows from the whole course of the preceding argument.
It is the impossibility that those who disbelieve the Ca--
tholic faith can educate Catholics.

St. Bonaventure has given us above the basis of all
true education : " As all these illuminations derived their
origin from One Light, so all these sorts of knowledge
are directed to the knowledge of the Holy Scripture, are
shut up in it, and completed in it, and by means of it
are ordered to the illumination of eternity." In man, the
highest work of God in this visible creation, all know-
ledge, whether of the mechanical and industrial arts, of
rational, of natural, or of moral philosophy, must be
subordinate to that relation iu which he stands to God.
his beginning and his end. And the root of all his moral
knowledge is laid in supernatural truths, which come to
him by tradition and inspiration from God, and are grasp-
ed by intuition. Thus his other lights are "shut up" iu
the I'oui'th light, that of Grace and Holy Scripture, and
are "completed in it" and "by means of it are ordered
to the illumination of eternity.' The great philosopher
begins his moral treatise, by telling us that one art is
subordinate to another art, and one science to another
science, " as harness making to riding, and riding to the
art of war j so that in all these the ends of the superior
are preferable to all that are ranged under them as neing
pursued for their sake. If, then, there be any end of ac-
tions which we choose for itself, and all the rest for it,
and if we do not choose everything for tlie sake of some-
thing else, for thiis the procession is infinite and our
search vain and fruitless, then must this be the supretno
good." Aristotle, Ethics, b, i, c. i. Now, that which the
great heatheu intellect had laboriously to search for, we

1861 The Catholic University. 559

have brought home to us by a supernatural gift, and
guarded by an infallible authority; the one relation in
which man stands to God ; and so his proper* work, his
appointed end as a creature. To mould him for this work,
to order him unto this end, is the province of education ;
the leading forth as it were of the creature to the Crea-
tor. And every art and every science through the whole
reign of mind and matter which is not used as a ladder
for this ascent, is perverted from its proper object; and
this is a great source of human error, to make that which
is subordinate superior, and the means the end. For every
portion of God's empire bears a natural witness to its
Maker ; every art of civiUsed life is an inspiration from
Him ; every science is but the reflection of some one of
Uis attributes.

Guardando nel suo Figlio con TAmore
Che Tuno e Taltro eternalmente spira,
Lo prirao ed ineffabile Valore,
Quanto per mente o per occhio si gira.
Con tanto ordine fe\ ch' esser non puoie
Senza gustar di lui, chi cid nmira.

Faradiso, c. x. i.

But as the ruder ancient idolatry showed itself in a worship
of sensible forms and self-chosen symbols, stopping short
of God in some creature, so the modern more refined ido-
latry of science, art, and literature, has pursued these in
and for themselves as ends ; resting in them selfishly, and
turning the very remembrancers of the Supreme Benefac-
tor into means of forgetting Him. " The original fault,"
says a philosopher, ** having infected human nature all
throughout, reflects itself in all its points, and communi-
cates to them its intrinsic vice, which consists in transport-
ing the ultimate end of The JBeing into that which ex-
ists. Thus, for instance, the original sin of civilisation
consists in re^ifarding temporal utility as its ulterior end ;
the original sin of science, in placing its beginning and its
end outside of God ; that of literature and the arts, in
aiming at the agreeable, rather than at true beauty ; and
so of the rest."'^' This was the crime of the mystic Baby-
lon. '* Thou hast said, I shall be a lady for ever. Thy
wisdom and thy knowledge, this hath deceived thee. And

• Gioberti.

560 Tlie Catholic University. [Dec.

thou hast said in thy heart, I Am, and besides Me there
is no other.'** And it was precisely on commerce and the
mechanical arts, thus pursued and gloried in, that the
W03 was denounced. '' The merchants of the earth shall
weep and mourn over her, for no man shall buy their
merchandise any more. Merchandise of gold and silver
and precious stones, and of pearls and fine linen, and
purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all
manner of vessels of ivory, and all manner of vessels of
precious stone, and of brass, and of iron, and of marble,
and cinnamon, and odours, and ointment, and frankincense
and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and
sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of
men." ** In one hour are so great riches come to nought,.
and every shipmaster, and all that sail into the lake, and
mariners, and as many as work in the sea, stood afar off,
and cried, seeing the place of her burning, saying : What
city is like to this great city V^\ As these are the words of
Scripture in exhibiting the great apostacy itself, it is evi-
dent that this is the danger to which education is exposed,
of being seduced by the creature, and in very admiration
of the wisdom, the glory, the beauty, the skill, which are
spread over creation, drawn away fi^om the great moral
Ruler, whose eyes are for ever fixed on us, looking us through
and through, whether the hearts which He has created for
Himself are indeed faithful to Him. Now, from eveiy
false standard of education, and so from idolatry of the
material arts and physical sciences, which besets England
in this century, we, as Catholics, if we be true to our-
selves, are divinely protected. We are the children of
that great mother of souls who, from the beginning, has
fulfilled her maternal guardianship, as well amid the se-
ductions of the old Roman idolatry, the ruins of northern
barbarism, the yet unformed and vigorous youth of Eu-
rope's intellect, as now in the soft sensualism of infidelity,
setting before us that all instruction must be be^un and
ended in this — that we are moral agents to be lea by the
choice of free-will to a supernatural end. In all that con-
cerns the true relation of man to God, she speaks a clear
and consistent language ; she has the measure of man's
inner nature ; can penetrate its folds, relieve its troubles,
and calm its misgivings. She can nourish and she can

* Isaiah, xl?ii. 7-10. t Apoc. oh. xviii.

1851.] 77ie Catholic Unwersiitf. 561

heal ; can guide the most timid, and overmaster the most
potent spirit. She views the whole circle of the arts and
sciences from their centre, in their due subordination, and
the harmony willed by God. Undazzled by the light of
the natural sciences, she bids them follow in the train of
their elder and nobler sister. Theology. With her, the
undying part of man is that by which she values all the
rest: she seeks, above all, to determine his moral choice.
Thus she sets forth the divine counsel to man, and the
interpretess of God^s will becomes the educatress of hu-
manity.

But it is here precisely — here in the central point be-
tween God and man — that Protestantism, by its revolt
against God and the Church, has fallen into a state of ab-
solute impotence to educate. It does not speak with any
one consistent or determinate voice as to the relation be-
tween God and man. It is not agreed upon what He has
revealed; and can but interpret a hundred different ways
the volume which it not only asserts to contain the Reve-
lation, but to contain it so written on the surface, that none
can fail to understand it. About all Christian mysteries,
that is, the whole range of the supernatural and the super-
intelligible, it can only wrangle with its several, not mem-
bers, but sections. Being inorganic, it has parts, but no
limbs. What can it do then with man, so far forth as he
is a spiritual agent ? A divine authority distinctly setting
forth a revealed truth is needed to educate spirits. When
for these Protestantism refers men to the Holy Scri{)tures,
it acts as a civil governor would do, who referred litigants
to Blackstone^s Commentaries for the settlement of their
suit. That is, it abdicates the spiritual government of
man, and leaves him to his private judgment; whereas,
the very office of education is to mould and determine that
judgment. As little does it venture to govern the moral
agent. What Protestant father's heart, what clergyman's,
will not bear witness to this fact, set forth at the commence-
ment of the most winning of modern tales.

•* Charles Reding was the only son of a clergyman who was in
possession of a valuable benefice in a midland county. His father
intended him for oilers, and sent him at a proper age to a public
school He had long revolved in his mind the respective advan-
tages and disadvantages of public and private education, and had
decided in favour of the former. ' Seclusion/ he said, ' is no seca-
rity for virtue. There is no telling what is in a boy's heart ; he

1

I

I

562 The CatJioUc Utihemly. IDec.

maj look ns open and liapp^ as usual, and be as kind and atteutin,
vlien there li a great deal wrong going on widiin. The lieart U a
eecret with its Maker ; no one oii eartii can hope to get at it. or to
touch it. I have a cure of souls ; what do I really know of my
parishioners ? Nothing ; their hearts are seakd booka to me. And
this dear hoy, ho comes close to me ; he throws his arms round me,
but his soul in as much out of ray sight as if he were at tlie anti-
podes. I am not accusing him of reierve, dear fellow; hia rer;
love aud reverence for me keep him in a sort of charmed solitude.
I cannot eipeot to get at the bottom of him :

< Each in his hidden sphero of bliss or woe
Our hermit spirits dwell.'

"It is our lot here below. No one on earth can know Charles '8
secret thoughts. Did I guard him iiere at home ever so well, jet,
in due time, it might be found that a serpent had crept into the
Eden of his innocence, Bojs do not fully know what ia good and
what is evil ; they do wrong things at first almost innoceatlj.
Novelty bides viae from them ; there is no one to vara then
or give tiiem rules ; and they become slaves of sin while ther
are learning what siu is. Thoy go to tlie university, and sud-
denly plunge into escessea, the greater in proportiou to their ex-
perience. "—(Loss and Gain, p. 1.)

O most touching aud eloquent confession of that impo-
tence, deep-rooted in tbe eystem itself, which Irustratea
in Protestitnt educationists talents, and zeal, and klndli*
neaa, even keen-eyed affection aud moving example, of tbeir
best fruits. Whut could an Arnold do here ? What but
send forth into society a host of iiiquiring minds, earnest and
anxious to improve, but without tixed principles or moral
anchorage, tbe chosen spoil aud instruments of heresy.
Thus, theu, by a necessity of its nature. Protestantism
remits the moral agent — as it did the spiritual — to self, to
the individual judgment ; and so in this point, too, abdi-
cates the office of an educator. In bringing up the
young it is driven to discard tbe idea of any definite reli-
gious dogma, and of any inward moral governance, the
first, through its intestine divisions, as it acknowledges no
living authority ; the second, because it professes not to
enter into tbe inward world of the thoughts.

But tbe man himself, the being capable of praise or
blame, subject to conscience, and to eternal reward or
punishment, consists in these two things, acceptance or
rejection of supernatural truth divinely revealed, choice ot
moral good or evil, by the eseicise oi' free-will. God baa

^^L rejection
^H moral go(

1851.] The Catholic University. 563

subordinated everything to this. For this, so far as we
can judge of final ends, He created the world. The monal
act of the creature gifted with intellect and free-will is so
precious in his sight, that with reference to it He orders
the whole course of the world. The most terrible of aU
mysteries— the existence of moral evil — finds its only solu-
tion here, in the abuse of free-will. How inconceivably
valuable then, in the eyes of Him who cannot look on sin,
yet permits through thousands of years this hourly repeat-
ed multitude of sins, is the right use of free-will, the act of
virtue, by which man approaches nearest to God, and as
a second cause is an image of the First. Though the act
of creation is far beyond our conception, yet far greater
still, both in power and in goodness, is the act of redemp-
tion, by which the Restorer renders His creature capable,
with His help, yet without injury to his own free-will, of
concurring with his Maker in a moral end, of determining
for himself an eternity. This is the highest point of dig-
nity in man's nature, by which he is weighed both here
and hereafter ; for which it is as nothing that he should
endure countless sorrows, wear away his days in trial, and
be put to the most tremendous arbitrement. He must
risk the unutterable loss of the Supreme Good through
eternity, in order that he may have the privilege of gaining
that Supreme Good by his own choice. And as this is
what is most precious, so this is what belongs to the whole
species, the power of merit and demerit ; a self-imposed
limit that God has set to His omnipotence, in order to
raise His creature to the likeness of Himself. How slight,
how unspeakably slight, in comparison with this, are all
other differences in man, differences of intellect, skill in
science or art, and in every accomplishment prized by
society. If education be to lead man forth to the Creator,
herein lies its seat, in moving this free-will to the all-im-
portant choice, in preserving it from seductions and false
shows of good, in winning betimes the intellect to truth,
and the heart to goodness.

No. It is the last invention of Protestantism to resign
this ground altogether. Dogmatic truth it declares to be
doubtful, and moral agency beyond its control. It pro-
fesses acquaintance with all sorts of gases, but declines
managing the conscience. It treats of every disease which
affects the blood, except concupiscence. . Its professors are
to write history, without the bias of morality or religion.

564 The Catholic University. IDec.

It promises to impart every science, without consideration
of their final ends. " The superior light of grace em-
braces/' says St. Bonayenture, " the eternal generation
and incarnation of the Divine Word, the order of living,
and the union of the soul with God /' these ai'e the oiuy
points which the new system of education excludes from
its encyclopsedia. It is not that the physical sciences may
not be made an effective instrument in disciplining the
mind ; it is not that they are not full of value in them-
selves, replete with sources of interest for the intellect, as
well as contributing to material wealth. It is not, there-
fore, in teaching these, and in applying them carefully to
the industrial arts, that this new system is objectionable.
The order, beauty, and harmony of the universe as God's
work, are richly exhibited in them, and worthy of man's
study ; their use is obvious, and their cultivation most
desirable. The sin lies in ignoring their relation to a
higher knowledge ; in excluding tjhe cultivation of the
spirit which should inform them from being the basis of
education. This system has infidelity for its first princi-
ple, because, while giving a public and authorised instruc-
tion in languages, sciences, arts, and literature, it leaves
religion and morality to be dealt with privately ^ as open
questions, on which men may innocently difier. A teach-
ing body, therefore, so constructed has no soul. In reli-
gion it is neutral, in all else ^positive. By the law of its
being it preaches indifference to all its scholars in spiritual
truth. Its professors, as individual men, have their pri-
vate belief, and are efews, Protestants, Infidels, or Catho-
lics, as the case may be, but, as Professors, they simply
ignore spiritual truth. In treating their specific subjects,
whether language, history, abstract or experimental
science, they are to exclude the divine and moral element ;
instead of reducing all arts to theology, which is the
Christian scheme of education, they are to banish theology
from all arts. No particle of matter, nothing within the
bounds of time and space, is imworthy of their inquiry,
save the point contested by modern thinkers, God and His
dealings with man. What, we may ask, is infidelity, if
this be not ?

As all training of the moral and spiritual being is here
discarded for the simple reason that the teaching body is at
issue about what that training should be, it results that
instruction takes the place of educatiQQ, liQwever elabor-

1851.] The Catholic University. 665

ate and complete this mav be, it still leaves the greatest
work of all undone. Again, the finer influences of reli-
gion, as well as its direct teaching, are cut offl Religion
IS, in a high degree, a matter of personal influences. A
sort of moral electric fluid is continually passing from aU
teachers to their pupils ; if this be not positively Catholic,
it is certain to be positively uncatholic. The supposed
neutrality is unreal. All the gain is on the side of Protes-
tantism and Infidelity. The real concession is to them;
and private judgment sits enthroned in the very penetralia
of education. As free trade stands to the Catholic Church,
so this system of teaching to a Catholic university. If the
nations of the earth can be brought into a permanent bond
of union by considerations of material interest, and ex-
change of commodities, then individual souls may live in
harmony without a common faith and hope. But a little
time will show whether such a promise be not delusive.
What could Antichrist more desire than such a state of
things ? Yet we are told that his times will be times of
trouble, confusion, and extreme suffering.

But what must be the efffect on the young of a system
of teaching in which all forms of religious belief, or unbe-
lief, ai'e indifferent ? The mere statement of such a prin-
ciple seems heavier than any condemnation which can be
expressed in language. Perfect indifference, it seems, is
the very crown of the undertaking ; its realization the very
token of success. What a mistake must the Author of our
religion have made in uttering these words, at the first pro-
mulgation of His faith, ** He that believeth not shall be
condemned ! ^*How wrong the Church in interpreting His
words to man, " Extra ecclesiam nulla salus V The ** Bel-
fast Mercury," a zealous advocate of the new system, says
in this present month, November, as quoted for approval by
the '' Times,"

" We have taken the trouble of endeavouring to ascertain whether
or not the different religious denominations are represented in the
lists which we publish, and the result of our inquiry is, in the
highest degree, satisfactory. If it were allowable to show to what
denomination each student belongs, the public would see in the
details as complete an illustration of the united system as could be
desired. But to do this would be to deviate from the principles of
the colleges, in which, except as far as the Deans of Residence
are concerned, denominational distinctions are set aside and disregarded.
But, we may mention, that in lists of houours all parties are repre-

566 Tlie Catholic University. [Dec.

seated, and represented, too, in a manner wliicli shows how
tlioroughlj the high principle of the system has found a response in
the public mind. We might refer, in proof of this, to the scholar-
ships for any of the years. Let us tako one of the lists as an
example, though any of the others would equally illustrate our
remarks. We find in one division a Roman Catholic holding the
first place, followed by a Unitarian, after whom come sereral
students of the General Assembly, while a Roman Catholic brings
up the rear. Turning to the other division, we find a different state
of affairs. There a student of the established church leads, next
him comes a Presbyterian of the Assembly, then a Roman Catholic,
afterwards Assembly men, and at the close one or two Churchmen.
In the lists for another year a General Assembly man leads in one
division, and a Methodist in the other, while a Covenanter stands
last in the one honourable array, and a Churchman in the other.
Such is a fair representation of the state of affairs as exhibited at
the examinations that have just concluded. We trust the time is not
far distant wlien it tvill not occur to any one to ask of uhat rdigion any
of the students are ; but, for the present, the subject is of the utmost
interest, and we have deemed it right to show how admirably the
mixed complexion of the students who have gained distinctions
corresponds with the principles on which the college is based."

From this instructive passage we learn two points^ that
indifference in religion is a " high principle, which finds
response in the public mind;'* and that its ultimate re-
sult, shortly to be expected, is, that " it will not occur to
any one to ask of what religion a student is." It is not of
the smallest consequence what you believe, says the defen-
der of the new education.

These several students, then, are connected by a bond,
which, whatever else it is, is not religious. We need not
ask what sort of belief such a system practically favours, or
to which it inclines. The first thing it does is to call upon
Catholic youth to regard with respect, as teachers, those
who, if Catholics, are teachers upon the tenure of keeping
their faith within their own bosom, and if not, are looked
upon by our supreme authority, the Church of God, either
as very guilty, or as very unfortunate.

A^ain, it sets up a standard totally different from that of
the Church, and opposed to it. It has commendations,
honours, and rewards, for languages, arts, and science ; it
teaches them with authority, and promulgates them to the
best of its ability. It does none of these things for religion,
true or false. Its highest merit is, to leave that alone, con-
desiring it a boon to let the Catholic rest in his faith, as

1861 J Tlie Catholic University. 567

the unbeliever in his heresy, for, indeed, it knows neither,
and is superior to both. Scarcely had we written these
words, when we found them thus strongly corroborated in
the letter of the Bishop of Liege, respecting the installation
of a royal college of mixed education, dated October 21,
1851.

" The Belgian constitution," he says, like our own, "guarantees
the entire liberty of worship, and nothing could stand in greater
opposition to that liberty than to force Catholic parents to entrust
their children to men who are not so, or to oblige those children to
receive religious instruction from a chair placed by the side of, or
on a level with, that where person would teach diametrically the
contrary, or in the presence of other professors whose conduct
would imply the denial of the education received.

*' And, nevertheless it is the last unconstitutional and unreason-
able and, I may say, anti-social system, which has become the stone
of stumbling. Is it not true, Sir, that the policy has been adopted
of maintaining the paradoxical principle in virtue of which it would
be free to the state, it would be even more conformable to the constitu-
tion, to people the establishments of middle instruction with literary
men of all kinds. Catholics, Protestants, religious, sceptical, prac-
tising or not practising their religion — (and would not the recent
organisation of our Athenees furnish more than one proof of this ?)
•^because, according to this paradox, scientific instruction, given it
matters not by whom, would be the great, the only object with
which the state has seriously to occupy itself, and that religion,
religious education, would be nothing but a mere accessory, which
it would be better to abandon to the family and to the Church.
Have they not the air of saying to us, give us a Catholic Priest,
since article eight of the law requires it ; we will pay him well —
we will take care that he shall be enabled freely to give his lesson
of religion — we will even provide that there shall be none but
respectable people in the establishment ; leave that to us, but do
not distress yourselves about what these respectable people may
think, believe, or do in religious matters — you have nothing to do
with that ; worship is free ; we are, as a power, dogmatically tole-
rant ; if you do not wish to be as we are, go your way, we will do
without you. Yes, this is the position they have taken ; they are
bent on doing without us, because we. Sir, we, have before us the
non possumus of Scripture."

He adds, further on —

** When the child who allows nothing to escape his observation,
liears the almoner say that it is a grave duty to go to Mass, to con-
fession, to the Holy Table> and when he sees that men, whom he is

568 The Catholic Universiiy. [Dec.

taught to respect, his professors of history, literatarOy &c.» never go
there, does not this child rapidly come to doubt of the dogma as
well as of the precept? and thenceforward, the passions aiding
the work, is not the loss of his faith as imminent as that of his
morals ?"

Can it be forgotten, ought it to be unmentioned, that
the power which nominates such teachers is the bitterest
foe upon earth of the Catholic faith and name ; that for
three centuries it has renewed against it, in this country,
the persecutions of the early ages ; that, within the last
twelve months, it has denounced our most sacred mysteries
— the very sacrifice of our Lord Himself— as " the mum-
mery of superstition i*[ that it has hounded on men to
bum our chief pastors in effigy, and to add to the funeral
pyle the image of her whom all generations call blessed ;
that it has anew, by a legislative act, proscribed the spiri-
tual jurisdiction ot our supreme head ; and that the main
organ which supports this system of education exults at
the draining away of Celtic blood from Ireland, in order
that the Saxon Protestant may occupy the soil. If the
professed rule of a system so favoured be religious indiffer-
ence-^the leaving each student in quiet possession of his
religion or his infidelity — can we doubt what its- real
tone and moral atmosphere will be ? can we think that
it will fail to justify the anticipations of its foun-
ders ?

Let us pass to another point. What has been the
position of the Church towards national education, and
the development of the human mind in former times?

Since she emerged from the persecution of the Roman
emperors, she has been the great educating body in the
world. She has headed the march of thought, and syste-
matised knowledge as it advanced. Her Bishops, in their
several dioceses, maintained schools ; her monastic bodies,
in the darkest and most evil times of revolution and con-
quest, fostered and propagated whatever learning thero
was in the world. As Europe settled into its more modem
state, she founded in the universities schools^ of a wider
range than the old diocesan or conventual bodies. From
a^e to age, and in every country, the Holy See is found
giving its sanction to these great institutions. Pope Gre-
gory XVL, in his decree of 13th December, 1833, declares-
that the most illustrious universities of Em'ope were found*

1851.] The Catholic University. 569

ed with the consent and support of the Roman Pontiflfe.
How well this statement is supported may be seen by the
following catalogue :

In England, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge
were enriched with many privileges by the Popes, In Ire-
land, that of Dublin received the rights of an university
from John XXII. , in 1320.

In Belgium, that of Louvain was founded in 1425, by
Martin V. ; that of Douay at the request of Philip II. on
the plan of Louvain, by Pius IV., in 1559.

In Denmark, that of Copenhagen, after being planned
by Eric VIII. , in 1418, with the consent of Martin V.,
was set up by King Christian I., in 1478, and enrich-
ed by Sixtus IV., with privileges similar to those of Bo-
logna.

In France, that of Orleans was confirmed in 1307, by
Clement V. ; that of Bordeaux was set up in 1440, by
Eugenius IV. ; that of Cahors, founded in 1332, by John
XXII. ; that of Dole, confirmed in 1423, by Martin V. ;
that of Poitiers, founded in 1431, by King Charles VII.,
and confirmed by Martin V. ; that of Pont a-Mouson,
founded by Gregory XIII., in 1572, at the request of
Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine; that of iJ/i^ims, issuing
from the foundation of Eugenius III., in 1148, at the time
a council was holding there ; that of Toulouse, founded
by the Pope^s legate in 1228, confirmed by Gregory IX.
in 1233, afterwards enriched with further privileges by
Innocent VI. ; that of Besangon, founded by Nicolas V.
in 1450.

In Germany, that of Bamberg, founded in 1648, by
the Bishop Melchior Otho, and confirmed by Innocent
X. ; that of Bale, founded in 1457, by Pius II. ; that of
Coloane, founded in 1385, by Urban VI., and largely
privileged ; that of Dilingen, confirmed by Julius III. in
1552; that oi Erfurt, made an university, first by Cle-
ment III. at Avignon, in 1388, during the schism, and
then by Urban VI. at Rome, in 1389 ; that of Frank-
fort, granted by Alexander VI., enlarged in 1506, by
Julius II., and more fully confirmed in 1515, by Leo X.; that
of Fulda, set up in 1732 by Clement XIII; that of Fri-
burg in Bresgau, and Gnfswald in Pomerania, confirm-
ed in 1456, by Callixtus III., and that of Gratz in Styria,
in 1585, by Sixtus V. ; that of Halle, granted to Albert,

VOL. XXXI.— No, LXII, 17

570 The Catholic Universitif. [Dec.

Ccardinal Archbishop of Magdeburg, in 1531, by Clement
VII. ; that of Heidelberg, first confirmed by Benedict
XIL, about 1341, then by UrbanVL, in 1386 ; by Boniface
IX., in 1393 ; by Paul III., and Julius III. between 1644 and
1555 ; that of Ingolstadt, confirmed in 1459, by Pius II. ;
that of Leipsic in 1409, by Alexander V. ; that of Mayence
in 1477, by Sixtus IV. ; that of Olmutz, in Moravia, in
1572, by Gregory XIII. ; that of Paderborn in 1616, by
Paul V. ; that of Prague in 1348, by Clement VI. ; that
of Rostock in 1419, by Martin V. ; that of Salzburg in
1625, by Urban VIII.; that of Tubingen in 1477, by
Sixtus 1 V, ; that of Vienna in 1365, by Urban V. ; that
of Wittemberg in 1502, by Alexander VI., and in 1506, by
Julius 11. ; that of Wratislaw in Silesia in 1623 ; that
of Treves in 1454, by Nicolas V., and in 1474, by Sixtus
IV.

In Spain, Italy, and Portugal, all existing universities
were either founded or approved by the xloman Fon-
tifi^s.

In Poland, that of Braunsberg was confirmed by Gre-
gorjr XIII., about 1572 ; that of Cracow ^ begun by King
Casimer in 1344, privileged by Urban V. in 1354, com-
pleted in 1400, by King Vladislas Jagellon, with the
consent of Boniface IX. ; that of Wilna^ founded in
1576, by Kins: Stephen Bathory, confirmed in 1679, by
Gregory XIII.

In Sweden, the ancient school of Upsal was erected
into an university, by Sixtus IV. in 1477, at the request of
its Archbishop, Janies Ulpho, and endowed with the same
privileges as the university of Bologna.*

In these high schools whatever knowledge the world pos-
sessed was most diHgently cultivated. So well established
was the hierarchy of the Jirts and sciences under Theology
their queen, that the Church, so far from feeling jealousy

* The above iuformation is derived from H. Conring, de antiqui*
tatibus academicis dissertatio VII. Gottingce, 1739. John George
Ilagclgans, orbis litoratus Academicus Germanico-Europeeus,
Francfort, 1737, and C. Meiners, Geschichte der Enstehung nnd
Entwickelungder hohen Schulen unsers Erdtheils, Getting, 1802-5,
writers, who, though not Catholic, jet admit that the Roman Pon-
tiffs deserved well of the republic of letters. Thej are quoted in
the recxieil of documents concerning the foundation of the univer-
sity of Louvain.

1851.] The Catholic University. 671

of them, and the Holy See in particular, encouraged them
to the utmost. Especially it recommended and establish-
ed professorships in the various branches of learning then
pursued. In England, the mediseAl Bishops were the
great founders of colleges. But great as were the bene-
factions of a Wykeham and a Waynflete, and so many
others in our own country, yet for munificence and love of
learning, one who was a Spaniard, an Archbishop, and a
Cardinal far outshines them all. Singlehanded he plan-
ned,^ he built, and he endowed, not a college, but an uni-
versity, with ten colleges, and forty-two chairs. Thus was
the noble-minded and saintly Ximenes employed while
Luther was still an obedient monk in his cell, and Heniy
VIII. a Catholic monarch, and a faithful husband. It is
worth while to quote the account of the American histo-
rian, for what a single old man did three centuries ago,
may not the faith and the love of a nation, which has
passed through the fire for its Catholicism, do now? Can-
not ten millions of Catholics in Ireland, Great Britain,
and America, rival even one Ximenes in the middle ages
before the Reformation was heard of ?

** This illustrious prelate, in the meanwhile, was busily occupied,
in his retirement at Alcaic de Henares, with watching over the
interests and rapid development of his infant university. This
institution was too imporl^nt in itself, and exercised too large an
influence over the intellectual progress of the country, to pass un-
noticed in a history of the present reign.

«< As far hack as 1497, Ximenes had conceived the idea of estah*
lishing a university in the ancient town of Alcaic, where the salu-
brity of the air, and the sober trauquil complexion of the scenery,
on the beautiful borders of the Henares, seemed well suited to
academic study and meditation. He even went so far as to obtain
plans at this time for his buildings from a celebrated architect.
Other engagements, however, postponed the commencement of the
work till 1500, when the Cardinal himself laid the corner-stone of
the principal college with a solemn ceremonial, and invocation of
the blessing of heaven on his designs. From that hour, amid all
the engrossing cares of church, aud state, he never lost sight of this
great object. When at Alcaic, he might be frequently seen on the
ground with the rule in his hand, taking the admeasurements of
the building, and stimulating the industry of the workmen l^
seasonable rewards.

** The plans were too extensive, however, to admit of being
speedily accomplished. Beside the principal college of San Ilde-
fonso, named in honour of the patron saint of Toledo, there were

572 Tlie Catholic University. [Dec*

nine others, together with an hospital for the reception of invalids
at the university. These edifices were built in the most substantial
manner, and such parts as admitted of it, as the libraries, refec-
tories, and chapels, wer^lfinished with elegance, and even splendour.
The citj of Alcaic underwent many important and extensive altera-
tions in order to render it more worthy of being the seat of a great
and flourishing university. The stagnant water was carried off by
drains, the streets were paved, old buildings removed, and new and
spacious avenues thrown open.

"At the expiration of eight years the Cardinal had the satisfac-
tion of seeing the whole of his vast design completed, and every
apartment of the spacious pile carefully furnished with all that was
requisite for the comfort and accommodation of the student. It
was, indeed, a noblo enterprise, more particularly when viewed as
the woric of a private individual. As such it raised the deepest
admiration in Francis the First, when he visited the spot, a few
years after the Cardinal's death. * Your Ximenes,' said he, * has
executed more than I should have dared to conceive ; he has done
with his single hand what in France it has cost a line of kings to
accomplish.*

'* The erection of the buildings, however, did not terminate the
labours of the primate, who now assumed the task of digesting a
scheme of instruction and discipline for his infant seminary. la
doing this he sought light wherever it was to be found ; and bor-
rowed many useful hints from the venerable university of Paris.
His system was of the most enlightened kind, being directed to
call all the powers of the student into action, and not to leave
him a mere passive recipient in the hands of his teachers^ Be-
sides daily recitations and lectures, he was required to take 'part
in public examinations and discussions, so conducted as to prove
effectually his talent and acquisitions. In these gladiatorial dis-
plays Ximenes took the deepest interest, and often encouraged tke
generous emulation of the scholar by attending in person.

"Two provisions may be noticed as characteristic of the man.
One that the salary of a professor should be regulated by the nam-
ber of his disciples. Another, that every professor shoald be re-
eligible at the expiration of every four years. It was impos-
sible that any servant of Ximenes should sleep on his post.

'' Liberal foundations were made for indigent students, especiall j
in divinity. Indeed, theological studies, or rather such a general
course of study as should properly enter into the education of a
Christian minister, was the avowed object of the institution. But
in this preparatory discipline, the comprehensive mind of Ximenes
einbraced nearly the whole circle of sciences taught in other uni-
versities. Out of the forty-two chairs, indeed, twelve only were
dedicated to divinity and the canon law ; while fourteen were ap-
propriated to grammar, rhetoric, and the ancient classics ; studies
which probably found ospccial favour with the Cardinal, as fumiBh*

1861.] TJie Catholic University. 673

ing the onlj keys to a correct criticism and interpretation of the
Scriptures. Of these professorships, six were appropriated to
theology ; six to canon law ; four to medicine ; one to anatomy ;
one to surgery ; eight to the arts, as they were called, embracing
logic, physics, and metaphysics ; one to ethics ; one to nlathema-
tics ; four to the ancient languages ; four to rhetoric ; and six to
grammar.

" Having completed his arrangements, the cardinal sought the
most competent agents for carrying his plans into execution ; and
this indifferently from abroad and at home. His mind was too
lofty for narrow local prejudices, and the tree of knowledge, he
knew, bore fruit in every clime. He took especial care that the
emolument should be sufficient to tempt talent from obscurity, and
from quarters however remote, where it was to be found. In this
he was perfectly successful, and we find the university catalogue
at this time inscribed with the names of the most distinguished
scholars, in their various departments, many of whom we are en-
abled to appreciate, by the enduring memorials of erudition which
they have bequeathed to us.

"In July, 1508, the Cardinal received the welcome intelligence
that his academy was opened for the admission of pupils ; and in
the following month the first lecture, being on Aristotle's ethics,
was publicly delivered. Students soon flocked to the university,
attracted by the reputation of its professors, its ample apparatus,
its thorough system of instruction, and, above all, its splendid
patronage, and the high character of its founder. We have no
information of their number in Ximenos's lifetime ; but it must
have been very considerable, since no less than seven thousand
came out to receive Francis the First on his visit to the university
within twenty years after it was opened.

'^ Five years after this period, in 1513, King Ferdinand, in an
excursion made for the benefit of his declining health, paid a visit
to Alcaic. Ever since his return from Oran, the Cardinal, dis-
gusted with public life, had remained with a few brief exceptions
in his own diocese, devoted solely to his personal and professional
duties. It was with proud satisfaction that he now received his
sovereign, and exhibited to him the noble testimony of the great
objects to which his retirement had been consecrated. The king,
whose naturally inquisitive mind no illness could damp, visited
every part of the establishment, and attended the examinations,
and listened to the public disputations of the scholars with in-
terest. With little learning of his own, he had been made too
often sensible of his deficiencies not to appreciate it in others. His
acute perception readily discerned the immense benefit to his king-
dom, and the glory conferred on his reign by the labours of his
ancient minister, and he did ample justice to them in the unquali-
fied terms of his commendation.

'" It was on this occasion that the rector of San Ildefonso, the

574 Tlie Catlwlic University. [Dec*

head of the university, came out to receive the king, preceded bj
his usual train of attendants, with their maces or wands of office.
The rojal guard at this exhibition called out to them to lay aside
these insignia as unbecoming any subject in the presence of his so-
vereign. * Not so,' said Ferdinand, who had the good sense to per-
ceive that majesty could not be degraded by its homage to letters ;
' not so, this is the seat of the muses, and those who are initiated
in their mysteries have the best right to reign here.* "

The historian, after recording the immense expense^ to
which the same Cardinal went in preparing and printing
the first polyglott Bible, ''a work of surpassing difficulty,
demanding an extensive and critical acquaintance with the
most ancient and consequently the rarest manuscripts,'*
for which '* the precious collection of the Vatican was li-
berally thrown open to him, especially under Leo the
Tenth, whose munificent spirit delighted in the undertak-
ing,'* for which "he obtained copies of whatever was of
vahie in the other libraries of Italy, and indeed of Eu-
rope generally,'' for which he '* imported artists from Ger-
many, and had types cast in the various languages re-
quired in his founderies at Alcala," proceeds: —

<' Such were the gigantic projects which amused the leisure hoars
of this great prelate. Though gigantic, they were neither beyond
his strength to execute, nor beyond the demands of his age and
country. They were not like those works which, forced into being
by whim or transitory impulse, perish with the breath that mado
them ; but taking deep root were cherished and invigorated by
the national sentiment, so as to bear rich fruit for posterity. This
was particularly the case with the institution at Alcald. It soon
became the subject of royal and private benefaction. Its founder
bequeathed it, at his death, a clear revenue of fourteen thousand
ducats. By the middle of the seventeenth century, this had in-*
creased to forty two thousand, and the colleges had multiplied from
ten to thirty- live.

" The rising reputation of the new academy, which attracted stu-
dents from every quarter of the Peninsula to its halls, threatened
to eclipse the glories of the ancient seminary at Salamanca, and
occasioned bitter jealousies between them. The field of letters,
however, was wide enough for both, especially as the one was more
immediately devoted to theological preparation, to the entire exclu-
sion of civil jurisprudence, which formed a permanent branch of
instruction at the other. In this state of things their rivalry, far
from being productive of mischief, might be regarded as salutary,
by quickening literary ardour, too prone to languish without tho
spur of competition. Side by side the sister universitves went for

1851 J The Catholic University. 675

ward, diyiding the pubjic patronage and estimation. As long as
the good era of letters lasted in Spain, the academj of Ximeues,
under the influence of its admirable discipline, maintained a repu-
tation inferior to none other in the Peninsula, and continued to send
forth its sons to occupy the most exalted posts in Church and State,
and shed the light of genius and science over their own and future
ages."

' Such, it appears, was the work of one Franciscan monk,
not having the fear of the Bible or of the Reformation
before his eyes ; of a prince of the Church, so little aware
that its policy was '* to confine the intellect and enslave the
soul,** that he was wont, being an excellent biblical critic,
to preside at the meetings of the great scholars who were
editing his Bible, after their daily labours. '* Lose no time,
my friends,'* he would say, '* in the prosecution of our
glorious work, lest, in the casualties of life, you should lose
your patron, or I have to lament the loss of those, whose
services are of more price in my eyea than wealth and
worldly honours."*'^

This work of Ximenes, unrivalled in splendour as the
act of one man, presents itself to us just at the termination
of the mediaeval period, and in speaking of it we may sum
up the position of the Church towards education for the
five hundred preceding years. AH the universities, scat-
tered over Europe, and established in honour and immuni-
ties by the Church's chief pastor during this period, had
for their basis Catholic faith and teaching, and for the
range of their instruction all that was thought valuable in
the human knowledge of the day. Once more has the
Holy See come forward, and having, a few years since,
exhorted the Belgian Bishops to found afresh, on Catholic
principles, the university of Louvain, now in like manner
invites the Irish Episcopate to fill up this long-felt need
of Ireland, It is demanded by a population more than
double that of Belgium, including, as we must, those
Catholics in the British empire, and in the United States,
who would avail themselves of it. ^ There is not a place
within the vast Anglo-Saxon dominions for ten millions
of Catholics, where youth of eighteen years and upwards
can obtain, from Catholic teachers, the inestimable benefit
of university education. They must do homage to the

* Prescott's History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the
Catholic. Part ii., ch. 21.

\

676 Tlie Catlwlic University. [Dec.

principle of infidelity and relipfious indifference, in order to
obtain the secular instruction of the Queen's Colleges, or
they must submit to heretical teaching, and all the ternp^
tations which the richest foundation in Europe offers at
Trinity College as the price of apostacy. Has there ever
in the world existed a greater and more pressing need than
this? Have the faith and the morals of Catholics ever
been exposed to greater danger ? If this need be not sup-
plied, if this danger be not averted, who can forecast the
future without alarm ? *' A mournful experience makes
it certain that in these pestiferous universities, (of Dublin,
Edinburgh, and Glasgow,) Irish Catholic youths, almost
without number, have made shipwreck both of faith and
morals/'^ Such is the sad lament addressed, lately, by
six Irish Bishops to the Prefect of Propaganda. But the
Holy See has spoken, and the episcopate has answered
even by the voice of a national council, and we doubt
not that every private Catholic will do his part. If we
want further encouragement, look at the intense hatred
shown to the very name of a Catholic university by tlie
Protestant English press. The evil spirit knows his
exerciser ; his furious outcries forecast his defeat. In
the authority of the Holy See we have the guarantee of
success. Ireland will add another to the forty-four uni-
versities, exclusive of those in Italy, Spain, and Portugal,
established by the authority of St. Peter's^ successor.
For its success there are two qualifications which now, as
in former times, we consider indispensable. Because, as
Christians and Catholics, we require a training of the
moral and spiritual nature of man above all other things —
because that which excludes, or shifts away from itself,
such a responsibility, we must consider no education at
all, but the surrender to Infidelity and Protestantism 'of
the iioblest of all arts and sciences, and a plain confession
of impotence in the very point where teachers should be
most strong — we do not, therefore, rest satisfied with any
system which does not embrace, according to their respec-
tive merits, all branches of human leaniinff and science,
whether physical or mental. This, and no less, is what we
look lor from the love and generosity of Catholics, to
establish in the next few years.

* ** Breves vindicia," &c., quoted in the ** Tablet," November 22,
I85I.

1861.] Tfie Catholic University. 577

But, after tlie time of Ximenes, the Church passed into a
more troubed period, and encountered the great revolt of the
human mind against spiritual authority. At the first out-
break, the power which she had so long exercised of guiding
education, and moulding the spirit of man, seemed, in part at
least, to be passing from her. For well nigh a generation
it appeared doubtful to what extent disaffection would
spread, and instead of beating back the furious spirit of
religious sedition by a greater internal energy, she labour-
ed as one scarcely able to collect her powers. Yet all this
while God had been fashioning in secret a sharp weapon
for her to wield. He was preparing for her again the em-
pire of education. It was the question of that day, as it is
of this. Scarcely a few years after the departure of
Ximenes to his rest, a gay courtier, a gallant soldier, was
struck down in a border combat of that same land. It was
a long and painful wound, and as he lay on his sick bed he
passed into the very presence of spiritual things, he saw
the two standards and the warring hosts drawn out in
world-wide and world-long combat. He saw, too, the
vision of the King in His beauty, and of the King's mother
by His side. Then he rose a new man, with all the
powers of his being turned to that one object, and intensi-
fied. And there began a life which, in its superhuman
self-surrender, is itself an infinitely greater miracle than
healing the leper, or raising the dead. In less than
twenty years — the very years which Luther spent in blas-
pheming authority, and breaking vows — that self-beggared
nobleman, having set himself in middle age to school, like
a child, to learn grammar, is found at Rome, the head of
a society of saints and heroes inferior but to himself, hav-
ing the sanction of the apostolic see, and bent with all-
mastering energy to direct once more the education of
Europe, and to carry it into every branch of knowledge on
the basis of Christian faith. And the spirit of that soldier
of God did not die ; it diffused itself not only into his own
society, but likewise, from that example, other religious
bodies, which since have arisen in the Church, set them-
selves especially to the great work of education. In these
latter days, when revolt was most widely spread, and
enmity bitterest against tlie Church, her work, too, has
been greater and more perfect in the hearts of her children
than ever before ; her pattern of holiness has been more
exact, her rule over the thoughts more severe, her founda-

•

1

678 Tlie Catholic University. [Dec,

tions of the spiritual life more deeply laid. Through all
the period of disorganization, from its rise in Luther to its
consummation in the great French revolution, never has
she sanctioned any education which was not based on the
Catholic faith. Then came a wholesale destruction of her
universities, her colleges, her religious institutions; the
confiscation of their endowments, the dispersion both of
teachers and pupils. Then Europe sowed the wind, and
now she is reaping the whirlwind. Fiftjjr years ago the
Church's chief pastor was driven into captivity by a nation
the Church's eldest born, and died in exile ; since then one
emperor and two kings of that nation have died in exile also,
and the whole land stands quaking at what has happened
and may happen again to it, from its own children's broils.
All Europe, too, with its hundreds of thousands of armed
men, waits in fear for what is scarcely warded from it, this
great breaking up of society. And what is the.cause of this ?
That Europe has unchristianised education, stripped and
fettered the Church, run headlong after arts and sciences,
sensual literature, and material luxuries, but disregarded
truth.

There has been a great destruction. AH through the
the eighteenth century those principles of infidelity, which,
alas ! came forth from England, and passed to the French
encyclopsedists, and their German compeers, the chosen
friends of that wretched Frederic, misnamed Great, were
sapping all authority both in the spiritual and the temporal
order of things. The chosen object they had in view was
to emancipate education from the control of religion. And
one power of Europe they found singularly adapted to their
purpose. For one government there is, so unfortunate as
to be founded on infidelity ; one royal family, which be-
came royal as a guerdon for losing its faith ; one country,
which received half the reform from Luther, and the other
half from Calvin ; and so without belief even in its own
infidelity has been tumbling ever since from depth to
depth, until its religious state defies analysis, and its poli-
tical power subsists only by the sword. Prussia, under
Frederic, was indeed just the atmosphere so exhausted of
religious vitality as to receive Voltairian education, and
accept physics and mathematics instead of the God whom
it had betrayed. Here was the panidise of purely secular
education, mihtary discipline instead of religious fear, the
sciences, the arts, and the morality of the barracks. On

1851.] The Catholic Universitfj. 579

went that great demoralizing anarchical flood, the spring-
tide of sensualism, unbelief, and pseudo-liberty. It beat
against the monarchies of Europe, and sapped their spiri-
tual strength, while it found favour with monarchs by
seeming to exalt the temporal power at the expense of the
Church, till an Austrian emperor became its tool, and a
king of France its victim, involving in its fall the throne of
St. Louis. Destruction had indeed gone to its utmost
point, when the very altar of the Most Holy was polluted
with the living presence of the heathen Venus. Then
arose that great soldier of fortune to reconstruct in the
midst of a wilderness. He attempted to establish an edu-
cation which should catch all classes, from the servant to
the peasant, in its network. The people, he knew, must
have a religion, and he was not the man to give them the
abortion of Luther or of Calvin ; so to his education, which
should embrace, above all things, those material arts and
sciences which were the basis of his scheme, he added the
Catholic faith, not as a queen, but as the handmaid of his
power; not to rule in the hearts of his subjects, but to
wear his livery, and to consecrate his empire. ^ He wor-
shipped material prosperity as heartily as Frederic, but he
would not exclude religion as Frederic, under the inspira-
tion of Voltaire, had done. It was to be the mortar of
those walls on which he would rear an universal empire.
The Church's high priest should inaugurate the crown which
he himself, and he alone, would set on his own brow. Such
was the idea of Napoleon in setting up his famous univer-
sity, the drag-net which he cast over France, to gather
every faculty and passion of man for his service. It was
not properly mixed education, for he engaged that Catho-
lics, and they were the vast majority of his people, should
be taught the Catholic faith ; his colleges had chaplains,
chapels, and sacraments ; he did not expect society to go
on without its soul. But Catholicism in these establish-
ments was not to rule, but to serve ; to be, not the homage
paid by the spirit of man to the king of spirits, but an
officer of the emperor's court. Under such conditions
truth itself — so perilously shaken by the storms of the age,
and banished from the hearts of men by worldly passions —
could not regain its empire. We have now seen the result.
The year 1848 has satisfied, at last, the most unbelieving,
that the material arts and the money interests of life can-
not make a national society hold together. M. Cousin is

680 The Catholic Unwersity. [Dec.

fallen into disrepute. M. Thiers loudly professes himself
a Catholic. Tiie historian of the French Revolution pro-
claims that the university has not done its work, or rather
has done a work very different from that which society re-
quired of it. He is for destroying its monopoly, for mak-
ing a bona fide Christian and Catholic education. In this
alone he sees a future basis for society, as well as govern-
ment. The extremity of the danger, the suspension of all
the great powers of temporal government, the sight of a
society in which, beside brute force as embodied in the
army, not one moral power, save the Church of God, re-
mains standing, has caused the scales to drop from eyes so
long jealous of the Church. He sees that it has come to an
absolute and final choice, between the holy mother of saints
and the evil one. Nor has one nation only been brought
to its senses. An Austrian emperor has undone those
fetters which the emperor Joseph imposed, happy if ic be
not too late, and if his own zeal for religion be recompens-
ed by the loyalty of his subjects. The race of Hohenzol-
lern itself would gladly give a religion to its people, had it
one to give. Such is the instability, the universal agitar
tion of minds, which acknowledge no authority, and have
no anchorage in heavenly hopes; so rotten that forced
compromise between two heresies which no one believes ; so
extreme the empire of doubt in that country which first
set up for its rule the bare text of the Bible interpreted by
the individual ; so dissolved is society in the land where
secular education has reigned triumphant. They are
turning round, and stretching out their hands in supplicar
tion to the Church of God; they venerate in her more
than ever what is unchangeable amid ceaseless changes,
and the dread of the future ; what is spiritual, amid the
impotence of temporal powers ; what is orderly, wise, and
temperate, amid the outbreak of disorder, folly, and rash-
ness. They not only see that pyramid whose head emer-
ges now as ever above the "many waters*' of human
conflict, but they long to be in safety on the rock of
Peter.

At such a moment, when this mixed secular education
has been tried by whole nations, and either rejected, or
endured because the ruin is irremediable, and license has
gone beyond cure, — when all the nations of the continent
have seen through the pernicious deception, it is proposed
as the great boon for the sufferings and wrongs of Ireland.

1851.] Tlie Catholic University. 681

This statue of Dagon, which has fallen down of itself
headless at the threshold of truth, is reared up again
amongst us, carefully brought over, dressed in fine clothes,
sumptuously housed, and set down with much parade for
Catholics to worship. The very thing which has brought
France and Prussia to the brink of destruction, is to heal
the dissensions of Ireland. Though England itself, with all
its Protestantism, and with all its sects, will not have it,
and retains in the heart of the nation the principle of truth
strong enough to abhor the doctrine of indifference, it is to
be forced on our poverty. That which with one accord the
statesmen of the continent will have no longer, is to be
introduced among us as the earnest of future prosperity,
and we are promised, if we take it kindly, that very soon
CathoUcism will be a matter of pure indifference among
us ; " the time is not far distant when it will not occur
to any one to ask of what religion any of the students
are.''

Yet we are assured by those who have carefully studied
the system that it fails to produce the very fruit which it
most boldly promises. So far from the qualities of the
scientific mind, thoughtfulness, close attention, sustained
vigour of research, a strong will to conquer difficulties,
being called forth, the force of the mind is lost upon mul-
tiplicity of objects. Youths come out not only without a
faith, or a scandal to the faith they profess, by their prac-
tical indifference to its precepts, but with a smattering of
many sciences which only proves how a little knowledge is
a dangerous thing. On no one feature of past French
education under the university do impartial examiners
dwell so much as this. Eminent mathematicians, and
chemists, and the rest, are not produced, but middling
amateurs and peddlers in the sciences. ^ Under this pro-
mised reign of knowledge, real learning is become as rare
as true genius. And add to this, where immorality in
practise does not exist, a thorough perversion of the moral
judgment in its standard of things ; a preference given to
physical truth and material inventions, over belief in the
primary truth on which all religion rests, accompanied with
a disdain for the sublimest and most ennobling Christian
mysteries, as if they were the mere subjects of ** sectarian**
divisions, and profitless controversy.

There has been, then, a great destruction ; let there be
also a great reparation. The Church of God has not lost

582 ^lie Catholic UnhersUy, [Dec.

her power. The spring of hfe is not dried up among the
nations of the earth. Let science advance to its utmost
limits, and the arts of all nations be promoted by a never-
ceasing rivalry, stiU the Church possesses the kev of
universal truth ; she is the prophet m the world, to whom
every power, spiritual and moral, physical and artificial,
bears witness. Whatever truth a Newton, a Cuvier, a La
Place, may discover, she can harmonise, for He who
dwells in her is the end as well as the beginning.

'^ Le cose tutto quante
Han ordine tra loro ; e qucsto d forma
Che Tunivorso a DIo fa somigliaute.
Qui veggion Talte creature rorma
Deir eterno valore, il quale d fine
Al quale ^ fatta la toccata norma*' — Paradiso. c. i. 104.

And this work of restoration to which she now calls her
children, is the re-edification of Catholic schools; what
Ximcnes did in 1517 — a single monk of St. Francis on an
episcopal throne — the power of numbers, instinct with the
same love which burns in Catholic hearts, may accomplish
now. A half-penny subscription propagates her missions,
why should it not fill her schools ? If her faith be precious
to the savage, is it not equally so to her children at honie ?
We have, on the one hand, a government without a faith,
the supporter of infidelity and the enemy of our religion
throughout the world; which has just proscribed every
spiritual act done in our religion as done by virtue of the
spiritual jurisdiction of its head; which offers us not the
means of educating our own people in their faith, Catho*
lies as Catholics, but insists that they shall first descend
to the level of having no faith at all. On the other hand,
we have many millions now bound together, not only by
common love, but by common persecution, by a calumny
without limit in its falsehoods, without remDrse in its mis-
representations. We have millions, also, across the ocean,
in our own colonies, and in the great republic, bound by
the same chain of love to the persecuted faith, full of
sympathy, ready and able to assist. Here are elements of
power, and an omen of success.

Of such a restoration of Catholic schools— the Church's
great work of construction in the latter half of the nine-
teenth century— need we repeat once more that the indis-
pensable basis is the Catholic faith itself, maintained and

1851.] The Catholic University. 583

inculcated as the primary law of its existence. The
practice of the Church from the catechetical schools of
Alexandria to the present day is uniform , and the system
of instruction in the West, began by St. Augustine, widely
extended by the Benedictine and other orders, carried out
to its utmost limits in the mediaeval universities, restored
and re-invigorated by the teaching orders of later times,
continued without let or exception to the great French
Revolution, and afresh stamped with new authority by her
latest decisions, tells us decisively as the reason of the case
itself, how she interprets her Lord's great command, " Go
and make disciples all nations, teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever 1 have commanded you.*' In her
eyes this must come Jirst. Principle and history are here
agreed.

The second point which we would inculcate in this resto-
ration of Catholic studies is, their range, which must in-
clude all existing knowledge and science. Whatever is a
need of the age, must not be neglected. We do not mean
that everything must be begun at once, but that from the
beginning a plan must be kept in view, which shall, in the
end, satisfy all wants. While we think that no education
is worthy of the name which does not first and above all
set itself to mould man's spiritual nature, which does not
plant within him faith, as the root of all proficiency, and
the spring, not only of the moral, but the intellectual
being ; yet, having this, we deem that we have the key to
all God's works, and laws, and operations. There is not
an art or science into which the principle of faith does not
enter, on which it does not shed light. The knowledge
of the first cause, and of the final end, assist men in study-
ing them all. There is not one from which, however ex-
tended, or reaching whatever results, the Catholic Church
has anything to fear. It js only when the heretical spirit
takes possession of them, reads them amiss, reaches but
half truths in them, or falsely interprets whole ones, that
danger arises to her faith. Take the most extreme case
which could happen ; the substitution, that is, of the ex-
perimental sciences as the general instrument for disci-
plining the mind of the higher classes, instead of the
learned languages and their literature. There is no op-
position between such sciences and the Catholic faith.
The circle of revealed truth committed to the guardian-
ship of the Church belongs to another region« Toese have

584 Tlie Catholic Universlhj. {Dec.

the sensible and the intelligible for their domain, she, while
never contrary to reason, is yet above it, reaching the super-
natural and the supeiintclligible. Those sacred mysteries,
with which her whole mind is possessed, and in the dis-
pensing of which lies the deep spring of her secret life,
leave to the reason of man its full range, but only require
it to acknowledge the limits set to its weakness, and pre-
pare it for the difficulties which exist in nature, and en-
compass even the best known paths of science, by the ut-
terly insoluble secrets of God. It is true that the most
wonderful works of God in nature have failed, by them-
selves, to lead the human spirit towards Him, and men of
great renown in the study of anatomy and astronomy have
become sceptics ; but it was bqcause they came to those
studies with a moral nature ill prepared, from a religious
system which they had never heartily accepted, or which,
from its onesidedness, never satisfied cither their feelings
or their intellect. With the safeguard of divine faith before
hand, it would have been far otherwise. Had they receiv-
ed, with a first love, the great truth and its consequences,
" The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,*' every
page which they afterwards unfolded of that '^ rich wisdom
of the Word, ^'whether in the visible heavens, or in the
frame of man, in plants and flowers, or the strata of the
earth, or its chemical constitution, would have deepened
their humility and their love to its Author. There is a
great gap between the kingdoms of nature and grace, not-
withstanding their numberless analogies, which faith only
can fill up ; and therefore it is that the Catholic starts with
a great advantage over all other men in those pursuits.
There is, then, no excuse for excluding from Catholic
studies any art or science, which has its positive merit,
which has won its place in the inventions and progress
of the age, and supplies any' recognised need of our ci-
vilization. This universality of range is necessary for suc-
cess, and is subordinate in importance only to the b(uU of
faith itself.

Thirdly, the objects to be kept in view are manifold.
We need to meet and overcome infidelity, on what it fan-
cies to be its own ground ; we need to rescue the physical
and the intellectual sciences from its sway ; we need to
set forth once more a higher standard in the world than
mere material progress. JEspecially in our own country
has history been perverted to serve the cause of error.

1851.] The Catholic University, 585

Minds of no common order, and learning of no mean
ran^e, have been devoted to treat the course of human
aflFairs, the rise, advance, connection, and dependence of
nations, excluding, as far as possible, the existence of the
divine kingdom amongst them, or vilifying its spirit, and
distorting its tendencies. The philosophy of history is be-
come its sophistry. Those who have turned rebels against
the divine kingdom have hated to hear of its agency ; and
modem times have been described in fullest detail, by
authors only passing over those achievements of charity,
those works of heroic self-denial, which make their highest
praise. Nor must we omit the incalculable advantage
which the Elizabethan heresy has derived from the posses-
sion which it has taken of the ancient Catholic universi-
ties. Itself without a spiritual idea to hold it together
— utterly earthly, and of this world — it entered into the
very richest inheritance of wisdom coming down from the
ages of faith. Reform sat enthroned in those glorious
ancient halls which were worthy to hear a St. Bernard
preach, and a St. Thomas lecture. Reform dispensed the
rewards which so many generations had stored up for
learning. It had the pick and choice of a great nation^s
youth ; it watered them from wells which it had not dig-
ged, and fed them in vineyards which it had not planted.
And if spiritual truth have gradually perished away ; if
all wherewith they have to satisfy minds bent on the old
faith of Christendom be " the stammering lips of ambigu-
ous formularies,'^ still a certain humane culture has
lingered on in those old abodes ; a certain character has
been formed in them which had its greatness, and its
beauty, and its classic grace|. And Catholics, deprived
of these, their own proper homes, have had no like schools
of education, in which, on the basis of their own perfect
faith, they could be trained in all that ancient times have
left of great and good. Surely it is time that this great
deficiency be supplied.

Once more, and fourthly, as a condition of success we
must name a perfect unity of thought and purpose in the
teaching body. Mixed education makes this impossible.
Thus the Bishop of Liege remarks, in his valuable letter :
** What is your secret ?'^ an intelligent man one dav ask-
ed me, ** for making your establishments flourish ? ' "It
is,*' I replied to him, '' the homogeneousness of the pro-

VOL. XXXI.-No. LXII. 18

T%e Catholic XJnwersKy.

TDcc

fessiorial body ;" and that may easily be conceived. When
all the inerabers of that body have but one thought and
one action, to inspire into the minds of youths, with the
love of knowledge, that of virtue and religion, may ono
not expect, with some confidence, happy results ! But
what are wo to expect where there does not exist this unity
of views and actions? Where, for want of professing the
same principles, the masters do not form, in reality, one
and the same body, and connot either combine or direct
their efforts towards a common end; where, too often,
one destroys by his conversation or by his example,
what the other is seeking to build up ? How could estab-
lishnieiitg of this nature prosper or deserve pnbhc confi-
dence ?"

And it is because we see one man singularly qualified
for so great a task, because we see in one, and v>erhups in
one alone, the conjunction of a name which has attained
to European celebrity, a genius embracing the most op-
posite quahties, a widely extended learning, and a will
most admirably tempgred, that we hail with the utmost
joy and satisfaction the appointment of Dr. Newman to
be the Rector of the Catholic university. It is a pledge for
ultimately effecting all that we could desire, such, perhaps,
as none other could be given.

To resume, in few words, the whole of our argument.
A concurrence of circumstances has produced a tendency
greatly to over vahie the mechanical arts, and the experi-
mental sciences, as being the means of material enjoy-
ment and prosperity. A disposition is even shown, more
and more, to make education mainly consist in giving in-
struction in these, and to subordinate all other knowledge
as accessory to them. But the education of man, lieing
■what God has made him, and considering the end for
which he is made, consists, primarily, in the training of
the free-will to moral action. Such a training ia the work
of faith, and the object of faith is revealed truth. There-
fore, Protestantism is unable to bestow such a training,
because in destroying the principle of authority, and break-
ing up the system of revealed truth which rested on it, it
has made faith impossible. Aud again, by removiug the
check of confession, it has lost all control over the heart
and its issues. Siill more unable, tor the same reason,
is Infidelity, to accomphsh such a work, having rejected
even those portions of revealed truth which Frotestaatism

1851.] Vie Catholic University. 587

has, although inconsistently, retained. Protestantism,
therefore, full of internal dissensions, and without power
to present to its pupils any body of moral and spiritual
truth which they are to beUeve as certain, or any living
authority, which they are to obey as divine, proposes to
evade the difficulties which itself has made, by avoiding
such subjects altogether, and by giving up the attempt to
train the moral nature. On the other side it offers as a
teniptation an exuberant display of all the arts and sciences
which rest on the undisputed ground of physical know-
ledge. Mixed education is accordingly a surrender to
heresy, schism, and self-will, of the whole nature of man
which is above and beyond this knowledge ; an abnega-
tion of the highest end of our being. Catholic education,
on the other hand, for which we hail the institution of a Ca-
tholic university, is the realisation before all, and above
all, of that highest end. But this secured, it proceeds to
group around it the various sciences, accomplishments, and
arts of social life. First of all, indeed, it deals with that
which is immortal, universal, and most precious in man ;
that free-will by which he is made after the image and
likeness of God; but while preserving througrhout a due
superiority to the enlightenment, strengthening, and di-
rection of this, it fosters every branch of knowledge ac-
cording to its intrinsic merit and value. And Catholi-
cism has, in its firm possession of the truth, and by its faith
in the unity of the divine will and operations, an assur-
ance that no science either now exists, or can possibly
arise, which, rightly and fully understood, shall be at
variance with that knowledge which it imparts to guide
the moral nature. It starts, then, from the principle of
faith, well knowing that it clears and strengthens all
powers of the intellect, and above all that it imparts to the
will an indomitable energy and a calm courage, which
are the best part of genius itself, and are necessary to win
not only success in every path of our mortal life, but a
place in the higher creation of God hereafter. Truth is
the centre of its circle, but the circumference embraces all
human arts and sciences. It must ever repeat, with the
great Christian poet, —

Lo maggior don^ che Dio por sua largliezza

Fesse creando, e alia sua bontate

Piu coiiformato, e quel ch^ei piuapprezza,

588 -Vie CuthoUc Univer^fy. [Dec,

Fa delta volimla la Ithertale,
Di che le creature intelligent;,
£ tutte, e sole, furc e son dotate.

Paradiio, c. 5. t. 19.

In guiding, strengthening, and purifying thia free-will
consists its great task ; but on tbe indestructible basis of
divine faith it raises the perfect faiiric of human improve-
ment and culture. For such a work the time is most pro-
pitious. The spirit of unbelief, inaugurated by Protes-
tantism in modem Europe, has broken up all dogma, ami
destroyed all spiritual authority, outside of the one Catholic
society; tbe Anglican pseudo-church lies split down to
the middle by internal dissension, and, in the midst of
wealth and social influence, conscious of her deadly
wound; the sects, which ai'e the irregular offspring of her
fornication with the State, present to the thoughtful eye
a mere chaos of private judgment run mad. Let the
Church of God but maintain ber dear-bought liberty, let
her not seek to be a pensioner of heresy, but rest on her
inward powers and tbe love of her children ; let her unfold,
for the education of those children, the unspeakably pre-
cious inheritance of faith and knowledge, which she has
guarded for eighteen hundred years — and a gi-eat triumph
is before her. She will yet rescue the nations from the
moral anarchy into which they have plunged themselves.
She will gain, over the reasoned infidelity and deranged
free-will of the nineteenth centni-y, a greater triumph than
she wrought in tbe times of St. Augustine or St. Thomas,
and be at once the fortress of society and the fountain of
knowledge.

1851.] T/ie Age of Honesty. 689

Art. VIII.— rAe Lancet, vol. 1 and 2. London, 1851.

A PROVERB may not unaptly be defined *' a stereo-
typed truth/* As a book may appear in various
forms, as a dozy folio, or a prosy quarto, or a chatty
octavo, till at last it has dwindled into a perhaps condens-
ed, but pocketable, duodecimo, and if found really
useful, is so stereotyped, and then no one quotes any other
edition ; so a truth gets spread out, or, as it is called,
developed,-jnto multifarious treatises, articles, essays, and
paragraphs, till at length some one happily squeezes the
whole sense of them into a sentence, not longer than " the
posey of a ring ;** and no one thinks of enunciating the
truth, most learnedly enforced of old, by any other form of
phrase. It has become a proverb. The danger is, that
such proverbs may become hackneyed, so that every one
quotes them, but nobody believes them, or, at least, acts
upon them. They come to resemble the monographous
(for, never being read, they cannot be called monotonous,)
verses on tomb-stones—" Weep not for me, my parents
dear,'* for example, which no one imagines have the least
meaning attached to them by any one, dead or living.
Yet the lines will continue to be engraved, and the pro-
verb to be spoken, while there be any of either.

Among these essential ivwih^, distilled, in time's alembic,
from the gathered flowers of many ages' growth, there is
one, always of doubtful morality, now-a-days of dubious,
veracity, but of useful general application, that " honesty
is the best policy." If one begins to measure this senti-
ment as a basis of literary superstructure, its area is im-
mense. Moral treatises by the first philosophers, from
Aristotle to Paley, rest upon it ; the Iliad itself, and no
end of epics, and tragedies, are built up from it. For, in
truth, what else is poetical justice but an illustration of it?
As thus : if Paris had been an honest man, Troy would
never have been destroyed. And so Cordelia might say to
her sisters at the end of King Lear, that '* honesty would
have been their best policy ;' and so might Hamlet to old
Polonius and yound Laertes, and to his uncle and mother,
and all else implicated in the famous ear-poisoning case^

I

I

690 77,e Age »f Houe^ly. [Dec.

then considered a rare crime ; for Exeter Hall, and Prlat-
ing-House Square as yet were not. And as to art,
Ho^jarth's series of the two apprentices is exclusively an
illnstration ot" onr proverb. But there is one still more
dolel'ul tragedy, expressly composed and yearly acted, for
the solemn purpose of instilling into the childish, and
impressing upon the youthful , minds of London apprentices,
this fundamental truth. It ia the most dolorous and in-
structive history of the ingenious George Barnwell, the
moral of whose career of ci'ime and misfortune ia bo em-
phatically put into his own mouth, in those verses of his
ballad,

" had I atucic to my pruins and figs,

I Lad never etuuk niitiky at CamberwelL"

Now if the recent revelations of the Lancet be correct,
and we believe they have uot been called in question,
we can well imagine the deep moral instruction conveyed
by this drama, upon the youths who are treated by their
masters to it at holiday-time, for the purpose of inculcating
on them the principle of this proverb. We may suppose
the following, privileged to sit in the front row. No. 1 is
the journeyman baker, who must leave the performance
before its close, to make bread, adulterated with alum, for
next day ; No. 2 is the grocer's apprentice, who has been
busy all day packing up in canisters, labelled " Pure un-
adulterated coffee," a compound of that vegetable, chicory,
and oak-tan ; No. 3 is the publican's boy, who was sent in
the morning on an errand to the " beer doctor," to tell
him, with a knowing wink, that his master had justreceiv-
ed a fresh supply from the brewery ; No 4. is the teaman's
youth, who lately helped to get into the premises a lot of
tea culled from British hedges ; No. 5 is the chandler's
lad, who has worked often to make mustard of flour and
turmeric; No. 6 is the draper's assistant, who has been
ticketing the whole shop over, with " awful sacrifice,"
"decided bargains," "selling at 25 per cent under cost
price," every word a lie ; No. 7 is the son of a milkman,
that writes " Aldernoy djilry" over the cellar that contains
two diseased cows, and must rise early next morning to
rival the Herald and Post, in the daily production of milk
and water. We could greatly prolong this catalogue, were
not this enumeration sufficient for our purpose. What

185 L] JTie Age of Honesty. 591

idea of honesty, as being " a policy/' can be instilled into
the minds of such youths, save one which will not be at
variance with what they are made to practice ? And that
will be, that honesty consists in not cheating or betraying
their employers, however nefarious their practices, but bv
no means in not cozening and deluding the public. Such
is the lesson inculcated by the proverb m this class.
" Honesty to those who cheat others is your best policy/*
And it will not be surprising, if some ardent spirits, that
aspire to great commercial dignity, and see how steadily
the firni keeps its character, and perhaps its manager a
reputation for sanctity, and subscribes to foreign and Irish
missionary societies, in spite of all these daily peccadilloes,
may come to the profane conclusion, that the highest civic
honours will be most easily reached by the tortuous paths
of Mammon, and even, perhaps, that Whittington's cat
would have had a better chance than himself of reaching
the chair and chain, had that worthy lived in these days of
sleek acuteness.

In fact, this and many other proverbs are like what are
called, we believe, life-preservers, things very useful to be
employed upon others, but which no one has any idea
should be used against his own head. Thus we can easily
fancy a man who has amassed a fortune in Capel Court,
by all the accredited acts of impossible railroads, fictitious
directoryships, made markets, cooked accounts, and
worthless scrip, when retired to a goodly estate of his own
buying, in the country, indignantly dismissing a servant,
on discovery of some small pilferings, with the solemn ad-
monition that '' he would find, in the long run,*' (he himself
having made a short cut of it,) **that honesty is the
best policy.^' P^.^^ ^^ ^^ ^ clever attorney, who, by timely
advances and judicious mortgages, has come at length
into possession of " all that valuable freehold estate, mes-
suages, tenements,'* &c., belonging to his client, and is
itiow a most active magistrate at sessions ; and we can
imagine him passing sentence on some poor wretch, con-
victed of poaching or petty larceny, adding gravely his
virtuous hopes, that the culprit would learn, '* that after
all,*' that is, when he comes to be hanged, " honesty is the
best policy."

But we quarrel much more with this proverb, because it
tends altogether to debase a quality, which has much more
need instead to be raised in estimation. For if honesty be

592 Tlie Age of Honesty. [Dec.

something better, and has better motives than policy, then
it is untrue, and therefore dishonesty to deal with it at less
than its real value. If so, this is, at least, a bad selt-con-
demned policy, and this makes the old saw of doubtful
morality at least. Our present age is decidedly in love
with itself ; and in the proclamation of its own praises,
which is neither rare nor low, there is no virtue for which
it claims greater credit than honesty. We of England, in
particular, peculiarly feel jealous of it. It is a birthright
with us. We may concede to other nations their just
praise for genius, brilliancy in art, success in literature or
science ; but we stand up for our transcendent honesty. John
JBuU may be a rough and plain fellow, but he is sturdily
straightforward and honest. We are not going to dispute
this praise, for we are convinced that in his aggregate
capacity he is so ; only we would have him be upon his
guard, and mind that this praise do not vanish some fine
day ; and the best way to come to this undesirable end
with it, is to consider honesty a line of policy. One is not
far from repudiation, when the balance is made in the mind
between it and honesty, as each a policy ; the question
being, which is the better of the two.

However, we are not going to discuss a principle, but to
look at facts. The publication before us suggests some
serious ones for earnest consideration, and yet they have
been again and again presented, in great part, to public
notice. It is now thirt3'-one years since Accum went
over much of the same ground as the Lancet's " Analytical
Sanitary Commission,^* investigating the adulteration of
food. Indeed, this important body has not yet gone over
the whole extent of ground visited by the daring chemist.
Two differences may be observed between their labours.
The first is, that the commission makes use chiefly of the
microscope to detect extraneous substances in adulterated
food, an instrument for such investigation but little known
in 1820. The second is more important. Accum treated
the matter as an alarming case of wholesale poisoning.
His book was most terrifying. On the cover were pictured
snakes, lances, death's head and cross bones, and a huge
spider in its web, devouring its prey, with the motto, over
all, of, " There is death in the pot.'* On the back was
labelled, " Accum on Culinary Poisons.'' The entire book
kept the same tone. Whatever one eat was shown to be
poison^ eveiy drink was a death-potion. Athenian hem-

1851.) The Age of Honesty. 593

lock Was nothing to beer; and a philosopher might die as
easily over a pewter pot of one, as over a silver goblet of
the other. And as to "the cups which cheer but not
inebriate/^ Cowper might have mended his sense, if not
his verse, by writing " but cheering poison/* Now it was
too much to convince people at once, that they were all
Toxicophagi, or poison eaters, every night " supped full of
horrors,** and awakening every morning to " steep them-
selves anew in venom/* Some laughed at the idea, others
were angry, most were contented to know that, as they had
not died of so many years* feeding on poison, so they might
live on as quietly for many more. Perhaps, too, Accum*s
subsequent fate blunted the edge of his denunciations ; for
we believe he was convicted of dismembering valuable
books in the British Museum, to save himself the trouble
of making extracts, and was transported beyond the seas.

But the Lancet Commission has done wisely in appeal-
ing, not merely ad stomachum but ad crumenam, and re-
presenting the system of adulteration as one of fraud,
more than of murder. This is taking mankind, or at
least the age, on its weak side. Many a man knows that
he is poisoning himself by hard drinking, and is not there-
by cured. And so it is hard to get a person to care about
unwholesomeness of food, so it be savoury ; a boy will eat
green fruit at the risk of a colic, and you tell an old lady
m vain that green tea is a sloe poison, for she likes it. But
<;onvince a father of a family that he is paying a shilling
for a packet of what is called tea or coffee, one- half of
which is a material, not only deleterious, but worth only a
penny a pound — in other words, convince him that he is
cheated, as well as poisoned, and you arouse his indigna-
tion. In fact, the motive of the adulteration awakens the
public to feel about its effects.

The discoveries thus made may help to bolster up the
truth of the adage, that " honesty is the best policy.**
Por the Lancet has fearlessly denounced, by name, the
vendors of adulterated goods, and has no less made known
those who, to their credit, and we trust profit, have resist-
ed the temptation to general corruption. But they certain-
ly do not increase our opinion of the prevalence of that vir-
tue, nor of its being considered one. Nay, we do not
feel sure that the public are very indignant at its violation.
We have not heard of any imposture, for some cases
amount to this, being exploded, and the quacks who ma-

I

694 The Age of Honesty. [Dec.

iiagecl it having decamped. We do not see the lying
labels taken down, nor the crowd lessened round celebra-
ted " marts" of spurious commodities. If no practical
results follow the exposure, we shall conchide toat bold
effrontery, and pertinacioug impudence can get the better
of scientific detection, and even of the ordinary instinct
of self-preservation. And as to the sagacious public,
we shall be content to philosophise, aud say, " Qui valt
decipi, decipiatur.

VThether all this evince a dulled moral sense or not, we
will not now discuss. But we believe it would be easy to
show, as a preliminary to these culinary deceptions, that
the system IS universal, beginning with much higher de-
partments of art than what, on Verrey's tomb in P&re la
Chaise, are denominated " les arts utiles." We do not
indeed think that the present age has exhibited such sig-
nal instances of literary forgeries, as the Arabic Code of
Sicily, detected and exposed by Canon Rosario Cregori,
or Psahnanazar's History of Formosa, or Chatterton s
poems of Rowley ; though Italy, saw very few years ai?o,
an attempt to palm on the public, inodited works of Tasao,
with facsimilies of pretended niannscripta, and Germany
was almost taken in by that clever fiction, Mainholz's
Bernstein-IIexe, or Amberwitch. But certainly in the fine
arts, there never has been such systematic imposition carried
on, as our times have witnessed. Of spurious medals, there
are, or have been, professed manufactories, one, we believe, at
Smyrna, and another in a city of northern Germany.
Pictures are manufactured by the gallery ; and it is hu-
morously said, that there are collections always on hand,
in Italian cities, where the wealthy Kentuckian or Califor-
nian can suit himself to a ready-made scries of ancestors,
gentlemen from armour, throughlaced coats, down to
powdered queans, and ladies from Elizabethan frills to
hoops, with lap-dogs into the bargain.

But many of our fellow-countrymen, who havo
embarked in the perilous entei-prise of forming a
collection of paintings, have found out to their cost
the ruinous nature of the speculation. For purely specu-
lative the business is. The Artist goes to the market,
where old furniture is exposed for sale. There be
picks up a venerable piece of upholstery, thoroughly worm-
eaten, and be pulls it to pieces. He thus gets an-
tique panuels, which are duly repaired aud straightened

/

1851.] Tlie Age of Hoimty. 695

by new framings. Next he selects an old engraving of a
favourite subject by a favourite master, a picture in the
Pitti Palace at Florence, or perhaps in the Louvre.^ The
subiect is copied on the pannel, the style cleverly imitated,
with perhaps retouchings and restorations, taking care
that tne flesh is wonderfully pure and well preserved ; but
a slight, though not unimportant, variation from the en-
gravmg, is produced. It may be only a hand more or
less raised than in the original, or a head slightly turned.
The production next appears, highly varnished, on an easel
in the artist's studio, or in his gallery exhibited one day in
the week. The rich, knighted citizen, who is making a
collection for his new wing at Daubery Hill, goes in, and
has his attention drawn to it by his cicerone, who believes
it is for sale, and inquiries are forthwith made. The price
demanded is outrageous ; but then it is an undoubted
original ; for here is the engraving of the well-known du-
plicate as above, and in this paintuig there is a manifest
pentimento, or variation, which could only have possibly
proceeded from the maestro himself. For what copier
would have presumed to alter that hand, or that head,
from what it was in the original he was employed to copy ?
It is, therefore, a repetition with a variation, and so of
immense value. As for its history, it was bought at a
sale, covered with smoke, all warped, and almost undis-
tinguishable ; and it has been restored by the Cavaliere
himself, who would not part with ,it for anything, if he
had not already two or three fine pieces by the same
master, and not a vacant place on his walls^ But it will
be a gem in Milords collection. The eloquence prevails,
the cheque is drawn, *' and Sir Balaam hangs'* — a clever
forgery over his chimney piece. Dr. Waagen comes in
due time, and politely tells him he has got for his hun-
dreds, the value of an old back of a chest of drawers, and
a purposely imperfect and falsified copy of a second rate
picture. We have not exaggerated one circumstance iil
this narrative ; we could point to fortunes made by this
nefarious traffic.

But if the collector's taste soar beyond such modern
objects, and covet the antique, we can tell him what is his
best policy. It is to call at once for his bill, and order

Eost horses. If he indulge his taste no further than little
ronze figures, Etruscan or Roman, with an alkaline pa-
tina over them, which, when his servant in England shall

7?ie Age of Ilottesli/.

[Dec.

I

have scoured it off, like that on Scriblcrus's shield, he can
renew in a few minutes, perhaps he will not be run up him-
self to a very high figure, b^ antiquarian roguery. But it'
he aspire after more expensive toys, cameos or intafflios,
he will indeed easily make a grand collection, hut all, or
most, belonging to one age. Perhaps the most complete
collection of engraved stones, as they are called, was
that formed at Rome, by the late Prince Poniatowsky, It
contained almost perfect serieses of Egyptian, Etruscan,
old and later Grecian, and Roman, gems, with scarcely any
lacnuEe. After bis death, the collection was for sale, and
at length was bought in this country, Impronti, or im-
pressions in plaster, have been taken from it, and exten-
sively sold to public institutions, so that the collection
may be said to have been published. And when a copy
was offered to us for purchase, we were assured that the
originals were bought mainly for this speculation. We
inexorably refused it, however, not only because very dear,
hut also because we had heard fi'om a person of eminent
literary reputation, that he knew the artists who had fabri-
cated many of them, and had avowed this to him. Knowing
the Prince's anxiety to make complete seta, there was no
lack of clever hands ready to supply them. So one day,
some one brought him a scarabeus, another day some one
else a Cajsar ; now it was an historical, next a mytholo^-
cal subject; and so in course of time, each series was
filled up.

It may seem incredible that the keen eye of a virtuoso,
aided by a good lens, should not be able to distinguish
between an antiqne and a modern engraving. But as to
this deceit being possible, there can be no doubt. No one
was more skilled in ancient art than the illustrious Win-
kelraann. And yet he was imposed upon by a gem, cut
purposely by the celebrated niKAEP; for he engraved his
name on his works, in Greek characters. There is a well-
known story of the late Mr, Payne Knight, prizing most
highly, as in every sense a gem, an exquisite antique ca-
meo, which he wore in a ring. He was a man of great
experience and taste in judging, and of great authority in
deciding, about the genuineness of such works. He had

bought this of a Signer B , who, it is said, was obliged

to leave the country in consequence of the detection which
ensued. The story goes, that the antiquarian was dia-
putiug with the most distinguished artist, first as a gem-

1851.] The Age of Honesty. 697

engraver, then as a medalist of the day, but since become
a sculptor ; on the inferiority of modern, compared with
ancient, art, and instanced as matchless the cameo which
he wore. Whereupon the indignant Italian, having re-

3 nested leave to examine it, declared himself able to pro-
uce one equal to it. His temerity was greeted with dis-
dain, when he tore off the setting of the stone, and showed
cut upon its edge, his own name, Pistrucci. An artist,
much employed in copying the frescoes of Etruscan sepul-
chres, assured us, that he had produced a fragment from
his own pencil, to try the skill of a keen batch of antiquari-
ans, who accepted it as genuine !

Alexandre I)umas, in his '* Impressions de Voyage,*' tells
an amusing anecdote, which shows that this class of
"tricks upon travellers** is not confined to works of very
high art. He visited Ferey with a large casual party,
and of course was shown, and expected to admire, all the
whereabouts of the mocking philosophe its master. Among
other relics, every one was anxious to handle Voltaire's
walking-cane. As he lagged somewhat behind, the show-
man of the place drew near to him, and in a confidential
whisper informed him that the stick was his private pro-
perty, and an undoubted relic ; but that being somewhat
hard up, he should be disposed to sell it for a moderate
sum, which he named. " Thank you,** coolly replied the
imperturbable traveller, *[ but I think you ask too much ;
for you let a friend of mine have the last for half that
money!**

The facility with which eager antiquaries may be gulled
is not confined to northern regions, to the Jonathan Old-
bucks, or the Pickwickian sodality. Our readers, no
doubt, remember the rich scene, where the amiable old
enthusiast is showing off, to the cool, shortsighted Lovel,
the wonders of the Kaim of Kinprunes, and corroborating
the evidences of its being a Praetorian camp, by the in-
scription on a stone, of the letters A. D. L. L. under ^ a
sacrificial vessel, standing, doubtless for Agricola, Dicavit,
Libens, Lubens ; and how inopportunely his lecture is
interrupted by the provoking Edie Ochiltree, exclaiming,
*' I uiind the bigging o*t;** and then unfeelingly transform-
ing the vessel and the letters, into " Aiken Drum's Lang
Ladle.** And still more recent is Mr. Pickwick *s pur-
chase, for ten shillings, of the carved stone, bearing the
valuable inscription of "Bil Stumps, his mark.** But a

598 The Age of Honeity. [Dec.

hoax not dissimilar, was played on one of the most learned
archEeologues of our time, Abbate Fea, the best editor of
WirJcelmaiia's principal work. He was invited one day,
by a party of merry gallants, to what is called in Italy a
vignata, that is, a merry-making in a vineyard, where an-
tiquities were said to have been found. In the course of
their rounds, attention was called to the fragments of a
slab of Cipollino or perhaps Pentelican marble, on which
were clearly the traces of an Inscription, filled up with
mould, just as taken out of the icaxsato, or vine-trench.
All surrounded it ; and having united its disjecta membra
zealously commenced rubbing off the earth ; and tliey
were amply repaid for their trouble, by the recoustrucUou
of the foUowing epigraph : —

S. I.

ET. E

V. N. M

INCH . lONE

All looked to the learned antiquarian for a solution. He
was never at a loss for a readiug of medal or inscription ;
and accordingly he read this, straight off, as follows: —
Soli Invicto, ET Etheri, Utriusque A'uminis Maxi-
mo, INC Hoavit lONE. "lone began this edifice iu
honour of the unconquered Sun (Mithra),^' and the Air, the
supreme deity of the two." All applatided ; but some
queer looks began to be cast at the stone, and then a
titter went round, when one of the party remarked, that it
read very well, and more compendiously in Italian, making
only three words, SIETE UN MtNCHIONE, which
may be famiUarly rendered, " What a noodle ! "

This was, no doubt, a rude joke, bat something of a
similar nature was practised for a better purpose, by the
late M. ChampoUioii. We give the story as related by
himself to a friend, from whom we have it. When he was
in one of the countless departments of France, there was
great excitement, in consequence of a discovery of Roman
remains. He was invited to examine them, as well versed
in such matters ; but showed himself incredulous. Not
so the Prefect, who was quite enthusiastic on the subject ;
and of course a report was forwarded lo head-quarters,
with a petition for extraordinary funds to carry on the in-

1851.] The Age of Honesty. 699

teresting research. ChampoUion believed the whole thing
to be a job, and determined to prove it. In the mean
time the excavations continued, and soon a most singular-
ly shaped coctile vessel, or terra cotta urn, as it was called,
was brought to light, only slightly damaged by a work-
man's spade. On inspection, it was found to contain a
quantity of coins, and the delighted magistrate had it care-
fuUv borne, undisturbed, to his prefecture, there to draw
up his report for *' Mons. N. N., Charge du Depart, des
beaux-arts de la France,*^ as it used to be facetiously
written, under a certain minister. His anticipations were
now verified, his triumph complete ; no, not quite ; for he
was not satisfied till he had gained it, over the refractory
Copt. M. ChampoUion was invited to the siance, in
which these interesting remains were to be exhibited to
the assembled notables. He obeyed the summons, and
found the curious assembly gathered round the queerest
vase that they had ever seen. Was it Druidical, Gaulish,
Celtic, Gallo-Grecian, Roman? No one could tell, for
no one had seen anything like it before. It had a bump
here, and an indentation there, an excrescence on one
side, and a depression on the other. It would have puzzled
Fanofka himself to classify it, and that is saying a great
deal. But what added to the difficulty of explanation
was, an inscription that defied all ingenuity to read, con-
sisting of the following letters : P. S. M. D. M. L. P.
However, no reasonable man could doubt of the genuine-
ness of the discovery, for, at the side of the strange recipi-
ent, was a small heap of coins, not indeed of much value,
but sufficient to authenticate the vessel in which they were
found. "Now, M. ChampoUion, what say you to this?
You allow the coins to be genuine I trust,*' exclaimed the
departemental functionary to the antiquarian, who was
looking carefuUy at the coins, one by one, and putting
each aside as he finished with it. '* Yes, certainly, they
are all true," he replied. " Then do you not believe now,
that some Roman edifice stood where we have been exca-
vating?" ^ " M. le Prefet, allow me to ask you, are these
all the coins found in the vessel ?" The magistrate looked
embarrassed. *' Come, come, now, tell me, was there not
among them a liard of Henry IV.? If so, why is it not
here ? ' The truth then came out. ChampoUion had been
to a potter's at some distance, and had had the most odd
piece of pottery that he could devise made^ and had hid it.

600 llie Age oj Honesty. [Dec.

like a mole-trap, in the track of the excavation, and had
fairly caught them. The Hard, which he had put among^
some worthless old coins, had been cushioned by the pre-
fect, and thus kept from telling tales. ^ To prove his ac-
count, ChampoUion decyphered the inscription. " It
meant,** he said, ** Pour Se Mocquer De monsieur Le
PrefHr

As we are on the subject of reading initial letters, in
connection with cheating, we will indulge ourselves, if not
our readers, with one more anecdote, because we believe it
has two good qualities, the one is, that it is inedited, the
other, that if not true, it ought to be. Se non ^ vera, ^
hen trovato, as they say in the South.

During the French occupation of Rome under Napoleon,
the best intimation of a reverse suffered by the imperial
arms, was an order for public rejoicing. A Te Deum in
Church, or a fete at the Generars, best gave the lie to the
exulting bulletins from Paris. In the meantime there ex-
isted that mysterious power of rumour, which seems to
establish a chain of whispers from zone to zone, an elec-
tric telegraph of mute signs, such as transmitted, it is
said, to India, news of Waterloo, long before it could
reach by ordinary ways. The population of distant coun-
tries seemed to get a knowledge, no one could tell how, of
catastrophes or great events happening at vast distances^
vague, hazy, unshapen, and exaggerated, like what sailors
call the learning of a distant coast, or rather like those
evanescent reflections of a continent on the western sky,
which lured on Columbus to his glorious mastery over
nature. It was in the winter of 1812, that this subtle and
hidden agent was at work in Rome, and an undefined
foreboding of some dark fate impending over the colossus
of Europe, filled nitsn's minds, as a comet or eclipse would
have done some ages before, when Greneral Miollis issued
cards for a great fete, in honour of the Emperor's trium-
phant entrance into Moscow. The Palazzo Aldobrandini,
which then bore his name, was brilliant, and filled with a
gay throng ; but there were mysterious whisi)erings, and
significant looks exchanged between the visitors, and
groups seemed intent on discussing some topic strangely
at variance with the occasion of the feast. At a late hour
the assembly broke up, when the servants, pale and auxions^
entered into the interior apartments, to tell their master
that an unseen hand had traced some mysterious letters

1851.] The Age of Honesty. 601

on the wall of an anteroom, thus repeating the warning
which blighted the joy of Babylon's last feast. The old
general, nothing daunted, followed them, and read^ traced
in charcoal on the wall, the following letters :

F. F. F. F. F. F.

Though of a large size, no one had seen them written.
It was clear that the letters represented words ; the vete-
ran's curiosity was piqued, and a Daniel must be found.
But where ? A servant suggested that there lived some-
where near an old ex- Jesuit, (who so likely to be at the
bottom of a plot ?) famous for making literary enigmas,
metrical conundrums, anagrams, acrostics, and all other
charms with letters, and able to marshal all the letters of
the alphabet in platoons, or to put them through their
paces at will. Let him be sent for imnciediately. The
general paces his apartments with impatience, while the
good old man is roused from his sleep, and, in spite of pro-
testations that he has committed no crime, is carried oft,
as he supposes, to the castle, but in reality to the solution
of a puzzle. ^ Look at these six F's, and tell me what
they mean,*' is the first address made to him. He rubs
his eyes, protests his ignorance, but is urged to study the
letters, and make his best conjectures. He thinks and
ponders : he has hit on something, but fears his interpreta-
tion may prove unwelcome. "No, no; fear nothing,
whatever it is, you shall be amply rewarded.

*' Then I read in these letters the following hexameter :

" Franguntur Franci, Flamma, Fame, Frigore, Ferro.

>i

which, with the loan of an additional F, may be rendered
thus:

" France Flies From Falchion, Famine, Fire, Frost.'*

" That is it, that is it,'' exclaimed the delighted General,
'' they have found it out. It is exactly the flight from
Moscow."

We may be said to have been treading on classical
ground till now ; and find some difficulty in descending to
the lower level from which we started. But this perhaps
is not so difficult. The loftiest genius of ancient Rome
could not always remain on the heights of the Capitoliue

VOL. XXXI.— No. LXII. 19

602 Tlie Age oj Honesty. [Dec.

hilly among columns, porticoes, temples, and the^ marvels
of Grecian art. Even there, too, he might turn sick of the
cheatery of augurs, or auruspices, and wish himself in the
lower world of every -day life. Now if he had no ambi-
tion to be pitched over the Tarpeian rock, he had a com*
modious descent by the Clivus Scauri, which led him
straight, by the chambers of sharp practising tabularii,
on the look out for clients and litigation, down into the
Forum, where the thriving traffic around them, no doubt
furnished materials for botn. Still to the credit of Roman
honesty it must be spoken, that the Republic had lasted long
before specific laws against swindling, or malus dolu9 were
found requisite. For many readers will recollect Uie
amusing story told us, by Cicero in his De Oficiis, of the
unfortunate Canius, who was woefully taken in, when seek-
ing a house. The owner hired all the watermen in the
neighbourhood to ply merrily before it, the day Canius
came with a card to view it ; and captivated by the spright-
liness of the scene, which he was assured was an every-
day one, he agreed to give a high rent for it When
he came to live there he asked in vain after the boats
and gondolas ; for he was told they had never been
seen there before, or after, the day when he visited the
place. *' Stomachari Canius,^' says Cicero, which we
suppose must be translated into English with a negative,
'^ Canius could not stomach it :** but he had no remedy
at law; for as yet there was none which annulled
fraudulent contracts. Yet we should much doubt, whether
in a parallel^ case, say that of a man who on the day
of letting his house, got all the omnibusses in the
neighbourhood to pass by his door , our law would pro-
vide a remedy for the tenant, as Cicero intimates to us the
Roman law, in his time, would have done for the disgusted
Canius.

In fact, civilization must be supposed to dull, rather
than to sharpen, the sense of honesty in a community.
Strange as it may seem, the history of dishonesty, in des-
cending from the lofty regions of art, down to the plain
level of plebeian "transactions/* passes through a more
golden region than the Capitoline descent. Not content
with the gradual and exhaustive operation of legal suction,
the aristocratic processes of fashionable depletion are far
more daring and grand in scale, than lower delinquents
have corn-age or wit fon From the magnificent saloons of

1851.] The Age of Honesty. 603

Paris, or Baden-Baden, to the stable-yard of an English
racinpT stud, or lower still, to the back-parlour of a hawk-
eyed bill-broker, the man called by the world noble, has
his range of swindling, cheating, ruining, and sending
others and himself to perdition, without much danger of
pohce-office interference, or even of social condemnation.
The fleeced and clean-plucked victim drops into misery and
forgetfulness, and the triumphant despoiler still faces society
widi the blandest of smiles. Almost while we are writing
these lines, men who have belonged to that profession,
which would soil its steel with blood to avenge a stain cast
upon its scarlet, have been Convicted of a horse-fraud,
wliich would have disgraced low professional swindlers;
and report speaks of a regiment high in honours, into
which dismay has been flung, with ruin, by a system of
reckless and depraved dishonesty, where "all are honourable
men.*' Yet, no doubt, this is emphatically the age of
honesty ! But we are getting out of our depth, or rather
soaring beyond our height. For, really, we belong to that
homely class of every-day people, who cannot understand
the existence of two codes of morality for a nation ; the
one which condemns the petty delinquencies of the shop-
boy, to figure in the last page of a newspaper, among the
police reports ; the other, which describes under the head
of *' Mysterious transaction in high (?) life,** in a central
page, the cold-blooded stripping of a youth of his fortune
and reputation ; as nefarious a deed as that of Abbruzzi
banditti. Dr. Samuel Johnson of comical morality, had a
lurking respect for the man who had courage to run
<£100,000 or so into debt ; while he despised the petty
debtor who got into the *' Bench'* for a £50 affair. So,
if we remember right, Boz tells us. This is indeed pay-
ing a tribute to wholesale vice, in which we should be
sorry to join : we own our sympathies are more inclined to
run in favour of the retail dealer in the commodity.

Such form the smaller fry which the Lancet and Accum,
for instance, love to hold up. The latter is particularly
sensitive on the subject of aristocratic purity. While he is
mercilessly severe upon the adulterations of beer, and the
roguery of its retailers, he will not have a suspicion
breathed against the duodecemoirs, who, in his day, as in
ours, ruled supreme, and exclusive, over the London
republic of ebriety. He will not allow it to be possible,
that any one, who deals with large quantities, can be guilty

604 Tlie Age of Honesty. [Dec.

of introducing into them, any element that would give a
false value to his X. Only your petty calculator is capa-
ble of such a blunder.

There is an interesting and most characteristic work,
entitled "Les Fran^ais peints par eux-memes/' Were
any smart Frenchman to take our own works, and out of
them compile the picture of what an Englishman's self-
recorded and self-inflicted miseries are, it would form one,
in truth, most ludicrously sad. We say self-inflicted
miseries, because none are more boastful than ouraelves,
of our power to remedy every evil, through our incom-
parable constitution, or to command the best of every thin^
Dy our unparalleled wealth. All this is very specious ; but
unhappily it is not true. That complex JEJ^ro, "the pub-
lic,** has long been convinced that, in London, it is
inhaling most Tartarean air, and drinking most Stygian
waters. And yet what has it done to remedy the double
pestilence ? blaughter-houses in the densest of its popula-
tion, gravel-yards in the throngest of its thoroughfares, still
exhale their odour of death: polluted streams pumped up
from the cloaca maxima of the city the fog-compellinff
Thames, drench the throats of the sober with tainted
draughts ; all grumble, and petition, and deliberate, and
carry bills, and pay them too ; and the omnipotence of the

Jeople decrees, yet the nuisance remains in its despite,
n the meantime, nations despised as semi-barbarous,
because unparliamentary, and most wretched, because
unrepresented, have pure air and water secured to them
by a more compendious system. Abbatoirs and ceme*
teries have been long since provided in almost every other
capital of Europe ; and Naples, Rome, and Constantino-
ple, and now Madrid (by a great public effort headed by
the Queen,) see aqueducts bestriding valleys, and overleap-
ing hills, to pour out copious and healthy streams into the
most squalid quarters of the poor. If we can remedy our
own evils, and don't, are they not self-inflicted ? Again,
an Englishman can afford to pay higher than a French-
man for a cup of coffee, so he believes. Why then should
the latter for his three sous, have a genuine cup of fragrant
Mocha, and be, for twice the money, served with a
draught of most ambiguous beverage, without aroma,
flavour, or complexion ? He knows he can have the best
of every thing if he likos ; then why hasen't he ? ^ The
fact, we believe is, that no other people submit so easily to

Dec] The Age of Honesty.^ 606

a general imposition as we do. If the bread be bad, or
short of weight, it is sufficient to cause an emeute in a
southern country; Englishmen submit to both with
wonderful equanimity. We wonder how many persons the
disclosures of the Lancet have mfluenced to practical con-
clusions on the subject of food.

But let us return to our portraiture. '^ The Enghsh-
man'* our French draughtsman would sketch, as
described by himself, is naturally of a sad and melancholic
disposition, and chooses his habitation accordingly. It
has been gravely asserted by an Alderman of London, (a
gastronomic officer of the corporation,) that its most
cheerful and healthy spot, is the great cattle market called
Schmidtfeld, and the rich merchants have their warehouses
and shops close to grave-yards, were they imbibe a
pestilential and most noxious air, at every breath.

The water supplied to him and his family to drink, is of
various qualities, differing one from the other in the
amount of animal life with which each abounds. The
Lancet has published a series of pictures, full of animation,
representing the scenes which occur in every glass of water
drunk in different localities. These comprehend not only
Lambeth, Southwark, and places inhabited by the poor,
but Hampstead, Richmond, and many other fashionable
abodes of the rich.^^

When he rises in the morning he refreshes himself at
breakfast with a cup of tea, black or green. The first is
often composed, according to his own statements, of syca-
more, horse-chestnut, or sloe leaves, or of a tea already
used, and got up again with sulphate of iron and mica.t
The second is invariably a perniciously drugged compound,
containing China clay, Prussian blue, verdigris, arseniate
of copper, potash, and various learned preparations of
lead. I Or he prefers coffee, which, with few exceptions,
is a mixture of chicory, itself grossly adulterated, with a
portion of coffee, and sometimes acori\s, mangel-wurzel,
and ground corn.§ To this he adds milk copiously diluted
with water,|| and perhaps a dark sugar, swarming with
Hideous acarides, and filled with cane splinters, sand and
grit.^ If he be recommended cocoa, and procure soluble

* Lancet, Feb. 15, (1851) p. 187 ; 22. p. 216 ; Mar. 1, p. 253.

t Aug. 2, p. 112. X Aug. 9, p. 136 ; 30, p. 310. § Ap.'26, p. 443.

II Oct. 4, p. 322. H Jan. 18, p. 74 ; 25, p. 100.

606 .77/ g Age of Honesty, [Dec.

or homoeopathic preparations of it, he is, more than ten to
one, drinking an infusion of flour, potato, sago, arrow-root,
or Indian com, possibly coloured by some metallic earth.^
Nay, further, if for the sake of health he procure for him-
self or children more expensive foods, made up in half-
crown packets, under the name of Exvalenta, or Ivevalenta>
Soojee, Prince of Wales's food, &c.,he has the cruel satis-
faction of knowing that he is taking water and pea-flour,
or potato-starch, or lentil flour, which costs, to the menda*
cious advertiser, (that denies its presence in his nostrum)
just one penny,! With these deleterious^ drinks he eats
plentifully of bread strongly impregnated with alum, which
makes it light, not only in quality, but in weight.I
' ** When he comes to dinner he does better, because he
feeds greatly upon meat, in which none can excel him*
But the moment he turns aside from the simple produce of
the field or garden, he relapses into his conscious partici-
pation of noxious aliments. He drinks beer or porter,
potently medicated yf\\h coculus indicus, grains of para-
dise, copperas, or liquorice; or wine manufactured from
indigenous berries.S If he season his meat with what be
calls mustard, he knows it is mainly flour coloured and
spiced with turmferic ;|| if with pepper, half of itisfloun^f
Into his salad he pours oil not of the olive, and vinegar
not of the grape !'*'''^ If he relish his arrow-root, it is proof
that his taste is Hibernian, and loves the potato ;tt if he
prefer jelly, and buys isinglass for it, he knows, all the
time, that it is a perfectly different animal substance.JI '

** In this way he lives contented, always muttering
threats and grumbling at the dishonesty in the world.

♦ Mar. 31, p. 608 ; Juno 7, p. 631.
t Jane 15, p. 675. The audacious lying of the adrertisements oi
these trashy impostures is beyond belief! The Lancet has fully ex-
posed them.

X Oct. 25, p. 280. The alum causes a greater absorption of
water, and so less flour to tho weight. Many of the loaves ex-
amined were moreover literally light. J

§ The Lancet not having reached this subject, we must refer to
Accum.

J Lancet, Mar. 22. p. 304. T Feb. 8, p. 162.

* ♦ Accum. According to him olive oil is adulterated with dele-
terious oil of poppies.

tt Lancet, Oct. 11, p. 252. }$ Nov. 29, p. 510.

1851.] 77ie Age of Honesty. 607

always confident he can do anything he likes, and that he
ought to have the best of everything, but still submitting
to a tyrannical system of vexation and roguery/'

Such might be the picture of the Englishman as drawn
by himself m national works, and we have thrown into it
the principal part of the discoveries made by the Lancet
in the modem chemistry of the kitchen. The series of
papers is not yet complete, and there are other alimentary
sabstances, which no doubt will be examined with equally
comforting results. But we think the subject should not
be closed without some details, partly in vindication of
sonie calumniated callings, and partly in aggravation of
ordinary dishonesty.

After haying made up one|s mind to have been for years
daily drinking chalk in solution, by way of milk, it is con-
soling to find that we have been imbibing only water
instead. Many dealers in London are found to furnish
pure unadulterated milk ; the rest go no further than the
pump for their admixture. A Swiss trooper is said to
have expressed his regret that wine was not colourless,
and water red, as thus all dilution of the former with the
latter would be at once detected. Unfortunately the same
difficulty applied to milk, though we have heard of curious
tests successfully, though unintentionally, used. One was
in a midland town, where the milkman had daily to cross
a sweetly tempting brook, but always protested his resis-
tance to its crystal charms, till a minnow detected in the
milk-jug, though " dumb as a fish,'' told an unflattering
tale. Another case was at a southern watering-place,
where the milkman was left alone in the passage beside a
pail of beautifully clear water, and on repassing the house
was called in, and mildly told b}" his customer, a baro-
net, that he had every moniing a pail of salt water brought
in for his children's ablutions. As, however, it is just as
likely to expect people to wait for some such discovery, as
to use a lactometer, which would promj)tly detect this fraud,
it is some consolation to know that it is not one injurious
to health, though much so to honesty. The old Scotch
ballad, by way of making an impossible supposition, says :

" Tak a miller that will not steill."*
And many a joke is to be found in our old writers at the

♦ Percy's Roliques.

«(«

Tke Age of Honegtij.

[Dec.

r

expense of tliafc thriving class. And yet eo far as dis-
houeet sophistication of substances goes, the millers are
the only trade which has come out imniuculate from the
searching ordeal of "the Lancet commission." Not one
sample of flom- was found adulterated ?■ If therefore any
one wishes to favour honesty, and his own interests, pecu-
niary and salubrious at once, he may procure sound flour,
and make good bread. For while every single baker doc-
tors his bread, the raw material ia furnished pure, ^nd
hero we think a discovery of the Lancet will excite some
astonishment. There is a company called the League,
which was established expressly to counteract the frauds of
bakers, by securing to the public genuine, unadulterated
bread. For this purpose it has its depots in various parts
of the metropolis. Would it be believed, that every sample
of league-bread procnred was found adulterated ? t

This, perhaps, may be assumed as a rule, that loud
boasting of nurity is a tolerable evidence of con-uption.
The Lancet nas shown this particularly in respect to cot-
fee. It must be owned, indeed, that this substance, which
has gi'adually become a favourite nutriment of the poor,
gives occasion to more lies tliau any other. But since the
late exposures, some of the most daring assertors of the
genuineness of their supply, have been brought to ac-
knowledge its mixture with chicory. A few years ago, the
avowal would have brought down on them an £)xcise
prosecution, and a heavy penalty. Now they are pro-
tected by a Treasury order of August Slst, 1840, wliicli
actually permits the adulteration with chicory !

The introduction of this indigenous plant, as a substi-
tute for coffee, first took place, we believe, in France, as
did that of beet-root, in place of cane, sugar, in conse-
queuce of Napoleon's attempt to ci'ush English trade, by
tne destruction and prohibition of colonial produce. There
is an anecdote told of him in connection with this subject.
One day, he was riding in the environs of Paris, sur-
rounded by his staff, when, in passing by a neat house, he
smelt the fragrance of coffee-roasting, as they know how
to do it in France. There was no mistaking it ; it was no
home-made stuff, but a geunine contraband article. The
Emperor angrily snuffed the tainted breeze ; for it smelt of
disobedience to his omnipotence. " Whose house is

• Ap. 6, p. 336.

t Oct. 23, p. :

1851.] Tli€ Age of Honesty. 60&

this?" he impatiently asked, *'M. Le Cure's," was the
reply. *' Hal ha ! I have caught M. Le Cure, and I will
teach him to respect the laws/ rejoined the Emperor, as
he dismounted, and, followed by his brilliant cortege , broke
in upon the unsuspecting abb€. The reverend delinquent,
sure enough, was engaged in quietly turning round his
coflfee-roaster, and bowed, with due respect, but with im-

Brturbable serenity, to the frowning monarch. " Eh bien,
. Le Cure, qu'est ce que vous faites 1^?" " Sire,"
replied the abbe, with an arch look, ^* je brule la mar-
chandise Anglaise." The Emperor was not only disarm-
ed, but delighted, by the smart answer, and after good-
humouredly leaving the Cure, sent him a loaf of colo-
nial sugar, as genume as the coffee it had to sweeten.

There, was necessity become the mother of invention,
but very different is the case here and now. Still the most
astounding case of adulteration, connected with this vege-
table, remains to be told. We remember a certain notori-
ous radical, in the days when the term was almost libellous,
of the name of Hunt, who was prosecuted, and cast m
heavy penalties for selling, not even under the name of
coffee, but under that of "breakfast powder," an innocent
farina of roasted beans. Well now, in these days of free
trade, the same authority which pursued him, permits the
adulteration of coffee with chicory, and thereby opens
the door to every other species of fraud. For what does the
reader think chicory is ? Why itself the most adulterated
of adulterations. The following is a list of the substances
with which this drug, called by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer "a wholesome and nutritious" substance, is
occasionally mixed, previous to its being added to coffee-
powder: — Carrots, parsnip, mangel-wurzel, beans, lupin
seeds, wheat, rye, dog-biscuit, burnt sugar, red earth,
horse-chestnuts, acorns, oak-bark tan, mahogany saw-
dust, Venetian red, and though last, not least, baked
horses' livers !'^*

** Round about tlie cauldron go,
lu tho poisoned entrails throw."

If so foul an outrage upwi honesty, decency, health, and
humanity can be fully substantiated, we can hardly think

♦ Lancet, Mar. 15, p,501, May 10, p. 526. *

' fflO The A^ ef Honesty. [Dec.

any severity too great in punishing It. At any rate, the
very mention of the atrocity sickens us of our subject.
We will only mention one more instance, more terrible
because connected with more sacred matter. A letter has
appeared, not long ago we believe, in the " Morning Chro-
nicle," complaining of an economy in the Royal Chapel,
attributed to a certain noble Marquis, whereby, instead
of a bottle of decent claret allowed ou sacrament days,
a spurious mixture had been substituted, under pre-
tence that the bottle was not consumed. We are not
surprised at this ; for a friend, who knows much of
Spain, assures ns, that the tent wine {the rota tinta, or
red rota) which found its sate chiefly for the same pur-
pose, is hardly in demand ; the reason allej^ed being that it
could he as well made by apothecaries in England,

It would be foreign to our purpose to pursue our subject
beyond the limits of food. Perhaps the " Commission"
will extend its labours to other manufactured articles,
though not exactly connected with health. Far be it from
us to say that the reign of fraud is universal and exclusive.
There are many engaged in traffic, who would not for the
world be guilty of injustice. We know of noble instances
where immense profits have been refused, because fraud
had to be practised to obtain them, in a way that hundreds
employ it. We know of many whose character and word
would be to us a guarantee as secure as the award of the
Lancet Commission, that what they give is precisely what
they declare it. The prisca fides yet lingers on earth,
and will resume, we trust, its sway in our traffic.

In this it will be, no doubt, aided by the discovery that,
after all, honesty may be the best policy. It is qnite cer-
tain, that foreign nations are competing with ua in fair
and honourable rivalry. If it be found that genuine good-
ness of production is the cause of preference given to them,
it will drive our manufacturers to the policy of honesty,
where this has been departed from. Who doubts that m
the arts of Tubalcain, in the handling and fashioning of
irou, English skill may reign supreme ? Yet we are los-
ing market in it; why? Because avarice restrains that
skill. It is not long since the emperor of Russia sent a
commissioner to England, Belgium, and other countries,
to decide where he should arm his forces. Belgium
obtained the preference, and the house of Pierlot received
an order for 60,000 muskets. Mexico has done the same,
and an oliicer sent expressly has given a commission to

1851.] The Age of Honesty. 611

the house of Goffin for half that number. The complaint
was that English guns burst. If so, dishonesty has turned
out a bad policy. We hope, indeed, that this reproach
will cease ; and that an Englishman, when he moves
abroad, in whatever clime, on whatever errand, will bear the
same stamp of warranted genuineness, which distinguishes,
not always truly, his travelling equipages. It was at the
*'Goldene Hirsch,'* at Munich, that we once met an agree-
able travelling companion, and as he was explaining to us
the mysteries of Eilwagens and Pachwagens, and how you
go in the first, and your luggage, if decently heavy, goes
in the second, and arrives two days after you ; he related
a pleasant adventure of travel, which had happened to him
a short time before. He had hired a smart French tra-
velling servant, and, on arriving at his inn, at evening,
knowmg well the stringency of police regulations in Aus-
tria, where he was, he called for the usual register of tra-
vellers, that he might duly inscribe himself therein. His
servant replied that he had anticipated his wishes, and had
registered him in full form as a *^ Rentier Anglais.'*
"But how have you put down my name? . I have not told
it to you.** ** I can*t exactly pronounce it, but I copied it
faithfully^ fi'om Milor's portmanteau.** " But it is not
there— bring me the book.** What was his amazement at
finding, instead of a very plain English name of two sylla-
bles, the following portentous entry of himself :

" Monsieur Warrantedsolidleather, Anglais, Rentier."

Such is the compliment of warranted solidity which we
would gladly have paid to us all over the world. Instead
of this, a friend has observed to us, that if the present taste
for economy and for mechanical improvement goes on yet
increasing, the time is not far distant when any one, in
modem English phrase, pronouncing a person to be a
brick, will thereby declare him to be hollow.

Mr. Richardson has just put forth a Second Edition of Mr. Edwakd
P. Walford's " Answers to Sixteen Questions,^^ by the Rev. J. B.
Clifford, Minister of St. Matthew's, Bristol. Mr. ClifPbrd is a well-
known opponent of Catholicism in his own neighbourhood, and
we think that some of Mr. Walford's answers are well calculated
to show up the weak points of the so-called Evangelical cause.
We shall be glad to find that they obtain a wide circulation.
Some Hymns by the same Author, entitled, ^"'Little Mary's
Hymn Book,^^ Part /., (Richardson) will be found well suited to
infant minds, as dwelling on sacred subjects^ in a simple, yet
rererent spirit.

612

INDEX TO VOLUME THIRTY- ONE.

Abbot of Clonmacnolse, hiB annals of Irish his-
tor>'. 57.

Actt Ecclesiastical Titles, immoral In its char-
acter, ziS—pcrsecutca religion by aiming to
prevent tlie succession of Bishops, 224^— man-
ner in which it was carried, 225.

Alphonto Llguori, St., his work on Moral Theo-
logy, 131— draws a marked Une between
breaches of the moral and the positive law,
133— not infiAllible, 138— formed his Judg-
ment from society in southern (M)untrie8, 139.

Ancient Mariner, poem of^ its origin, 341.

Apostles, the, their united testimony, 40X.

AthaiMsiut, St. 453.

Bacon, his writings contain no allusion to
Shalcspeare,3i5.

■ his theory of induction, 539 — correspond-

ence with Luther in the setting aside of autho-
rity, ibid.

Babylon^ the modem society compared with,

559.

Beaumont, Sir George, 348.

Becket, St. Thomas Ji, i66.

Belgian hre-arms preferred to those of English
manufacture, 610.

Bingham^ Sir Richard, Goremor of Connaught,
77.

Bisfiopst 1851 , the year ol, 476— confusion created
by the English titles of the Catholic Bishops,
ibid— large incomes not necessary to secure
good Bishops, 482— powers of Bishops in
respect to granting leases, &c., 500— their
practice of raising fines, 502.

Catholic, the penalties adjudged

against them by the penal act, 222— alterna-
tive in which they are placed by it, 223 •

• of Anglican Church, controversy

between Blsliopa of Exeter and Chester, 5—
their uncharitableness to Catholics, 10— pro-
test of some of them against the Gorham deci-
sion, 20— amount of heresy amongst them, as
shown by Dr. Fhilpotts, 24— their disagree-
ment, 26— address of, 24— of them to their

I clergy, 33 — of doctrine, 48— incapable of
drawing up a formula, 48.

Anglican, proposal to reduce their

revenues, 478— amount of their incomes, 479
—variations in their accounts, 480 — their
deductions, ibid— income fixed for them, 483
— their conduct upon this occasion, 484—
instance, 485— duty incumbent upon them of
carrylni^ out the intentions of Parliament, 493
— otiicr Bishops who appropriated more than
bclonRcd to thcin, 496— motives for the selec-
tion of Bishops, 516.

Bishop of Exeter, his protest against the Gorbanr
dedalon, 14— regrets fivhaidng acknowledged
the authority of the Court, 18— palliatioii for
having done so, 19— his refusal to hold com-
munion with the ArchUshop of Canterbury,
ao— opposition to him concerning Faith, 22—
summary of High Catholic doctrme* 30.

^— of Oxford, his glosses in the Horfleldf
Manor case, 504, 506, 511, 513.

of Li^ coneeming education, 567.

■- ■ ■ of CarUsle, demands an angmentaflon of
income, 498.

of Chichester repines at his nuall wig-
mentation, 498.

of Bristol demands a new palace, 449 —

and objects to pay the expense of it, ibid-*
denies his intention to renew the lease of
Horfield Manor, 505 -ofrersto seU to the com-
missioners his right to renew, 510— renews
the lease himself. Ibid— his alleged motives
for disposing of Horfield, 512— pockets larga
sums more than due to him, 513.
Blon^dd, Dr. his misrepresentations concerning
the Italian Clrorch, 236— complains of the
want of fitthig splendour for fhe Protestants,
248— whether he would give his ground or
consent for the building of a GatboUc chapel,

249.

Bonaventure^ St. his division of human know-
ledge into various branches, 531— declares
there to be six illuminations in this life, and a
seventh of glory, 533— his arrangement of
human arts and scinioes considered. Ibid.

^— upon education, 558.

Book of Common Prayer, Anglican, 9.

Books Foreign, notice of; 259^£nglUi netlee
of, 279.

BuonopijtrU^ the Emperor, his opinioD of Vol-
tah*e and Rousseau, 186— circumstances of
his marriage with Josephine, 188.

Camott M., his proclamatlou to schoolmasters,

102 — second circular, 103.
Catholics^ attacks upon them, 145— their conduct

in the late struggle, 255.
had the advantage in eloquence, ftc..

In the late events, 520.

divinely protected firom fislaehood, 560.

Cecikt Novel of, 520-521— extracts, 524.

Celtic Society, 53.

Chapel, ProtesUnt, hi Rome, 227— motives for
tlie present agitation ooncemfaig it, 231-249-
252 -Absurdity of describing It as a Granary,
238— was chosen by themselves, 239— ito ^t-
uation without the walls, Ibld.-^ts com-
mencement described by Mr. Burgess, 44A.

INDEX.

613

CharUi I. King, 207.

Christ, His ordinary life the especial teaching of
His apostles and friends, 387— His meal, 389,
— illostrated afterwards by that of St. Fran-
cis, 390, — His type, how reproduced amongst
His followers, 389— His poverty, 393 — common
opinion of His being Joseph's son, 399— His
choice of fishermen and their habits, 412—
truths inculcated by this, 413— preference of
St. Peter's boat, 414,— calls Peter to walk
upon the water, 419— contends against the
strict observance of the Sabbath, 427— Miracles
worked in connection with this subject, ibid—
His strong denunciations of Jewish rigour,
432— His death. Catholic and Protestant
mode of viewing it, 434.

Christianity t its iMssion not to promote civiliza-
tion, 545.

Christian Remembrancer, its fidsehood in regard
to Dr. Newman, 214.

CSkwcA, the Catholic, schools under her govern-
ance well supported in France, 92— shackled
bj the State In her efforts to promote educa-
tion, ibid— the only imitator of our Lord's
poverty, 393-

■ , alone graps firmly the mys-

teries of our Lord's death 434- -and divinity,
437 — considered as the common mother, 510
—compared with the bark of St. Peter, 417—
assurances given to her as such, 4:^ -her
course traced out, 423— still retains her great
body of truth, 542— contains the most perfect
form of Government, 545.

' , her power both of restoring

and elevating, 553— ckiims to be a kingdom,
555— the recognised instructress of the world,
568.

, loses and regains the empire

over education at the Reformation, 577.

the Anglican, divided against itself, i— pro-
gress of its dissensions, 3— is simply a national
establishment, 8— position in which it is
placed by Drs. Sumner and Philpotts, 12—
her submission to temporal power, 15 — royal
supremacy over it, 34— her " signs of life,"
46— her course traced out, 423.

' her present p(»ition, 541—

utterly deficient in S3^tem, 542.

Churchy the Greek, 417.

Italian, proposed to be built In London,

231— has been long intended, 233 — subscrip-
tions received for it in 1848, 234— approved
by the Pope 3| years ago, 236 — to be an ordi-
nary church and not a cathedral, 237.

Cieero*s humorous anecdote of Canius, 602.

Citizenship of one kind or another, natural to
man, 557.

Clonmaenoise, Abbey of, 57.

Coff^, adulterations of, 6c^.

Commissioners, Ecclesiastical 483— tlieir duties in
respect to the Bishops, 489 — increase the
income of the Bishop of Chichester, 498—
transfer Horfleld Manor to themselves, sen-
attempt to screen the Bishop's subsequent
conduct, 515— provide against like cases, ibid.

Confession, seal of secrecy in it. Catholic Priests
charged with violating it, 142.

Conscience, coses of, 123.

Cyprian, St., 464, 466.

Daimon, 90.

Dates, use made of them, 476.

Deagadh, race of, 65.

Descartes, builds all verities on the Internal

sense, 539.
Donckra, Sir Henry, two tracts by him, 77— nar-

rative of an expedition entrusted to him in
1600, 80— destroys the convent of Donegal, 81
—treacherously treats his Irish allies, K^e,
Garvie, 85— O'Calne, 86.

Dubois, M., head of the Normal school In Paris,
95— embarrassed by the appearance of
Joulfroy's papers, ibid— his removal firom the
direction of schools, 116,

Dupanloup, Monsigneur, Bishop of Orleans, con-
cerning education, 109.

JSdueation, questions concerning the liberty of,
106.

Education, ttie great question of the day, 553 —
religion the great difficulty, 554— which is
none to Catholics, ibid., what the effect of
one in which all dogma is left out, 565— news-
paper testimony concerning the Protestant
form of, 565.

Education in Prussia, 578— under Napoleon, 579
— ^mixed education given now as a boon to
Ireland, 581 — does not answer even in a secu-
lar sense, 581.

Education, Catiiolic, the first point to be con-
sidered in its restoration, 582— the second,
583— its objects, 584— conditions of its suc-
cess, 585.

Etremordans, race of, 62.

Elizabeth, St., her greeting of our Blessed Lady,
406.

Englishman, his diet, 604.

BtangeUst, higher title than ttiat of Apostle, 397.

Exhibition, the great, description of the close of
it, 547-

FttUh, Catholic, every portion of It to be equally
maintained, 7 —Justification by— Catholic
doctrine concerning, 25— must be held
entire, 29*

FaUoux, M. D., Minister of public instruction,
102— prepares a BUI for promoting Christian
education, 104— conduct of statesmen on the
occasion, 105.

Facing, easily dispensed from, 134.

Ferdinand, king of Naples, Justification of his
conduct, 208.

Firmilian, authenticity of his writings ques-
tioned, 443— Mr. Shepherd's opinion of them,

449-
Florist, the Catholic, 196.
Flowers, suitable offerings for the Altar, 197^

language of, 199.
Food, adulteration of, 592, 604.
Francis, St. his love of poverty, 392.
Free-^oitt, Its inflnito importance, 562.
Fua, Sir H. J., bis decisions in 1850, 184.

Oawthom, Mr., his letters to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, 209 his falsehood compared with
that of the Morning Chronicle, 210— his
letter, 211.

Oentm, Father, his biography, 367— forms an at-
tachment, 368— renounces the world, 369—
becomes acquainted with Rosmini, 370— their
correspondence, 371 — is led astray by another
object, 374— goes upon a mission to England,
379— trials on returning to England, 381—
goes again to England, ibid— mistake that he
falls into, 382.

Oirondists, anecdote of them, 179.

God, the Fontal light, 531.

Qorham, Mr., decision upon his case, 15— acqui-
escence of the nation in it, 20.

Gr gory, the Great, St., his entertainment of the
poor, 392.

Guardian, newspaper, Its Increased bitterness to

614

INDEX.

Catholics, 201— <;hange in It« religious profes-
sions, 202— charges brought by it against
Catholics of lying, 204— unfair conduct to Mr.
Gav^-thorn, 210— compared with its notice of
Mr. Seymour's book, 213.
Guizot, M., upon tlie French system of educa-
tion, 92— his law of 1838 concerning primary
schools, 98.

Ifardouint the Pere, 437— his theories about the
clas.sics, 438.

Harrowbyt Earl of, his speech concerning the
Protestant chapel in Rome, 227— error in his
comparison of Protestants in Home and Cath-
olics in England, 241.

Henry II., 168,

IJigh-Torpum^ principle of, 205.

Honesty the best policy, 589 -various applica-
tions of the proverb, 590— false in principle,

592.
assumed as an English virtue, 591—

the sense of it dulled by civilization, 602.

Jlorfidd Manor, 503.

Ignatius, St., 577.

Imposition practised in the line arts, 594— and in

iniaginaiy relics, 597— anecdotes of. 598.
Ingredients used in adulterating tea and coffee,

605.
Inscriptions, anti-Popery, on the walls of the

palace gardens. 253 .
Ireland^ Pagan, bardic story of Its primeval

population, 45— of its sea-faring invaders, 56.
protests against the Ecclesiastical

Titles Act, 219.
Irish^ the, invasions of Scotland by, 57— fabu-
lousness proved, ibid.
Ir. race of, 59, 61.
Ith, one of the Spanish progenitors of the Irish,

54~po8sessions of the Ithion race, 64.

John tlie Baptist, St., cleansed in his motlicr's
womb from tlie taint of sin, 408— at the word
of Mary, 409,

Journalism, the new ruler of the world, 556.

Jonffroy, M., effect of the appearance of his
papers after his death, 95.

K^le, Mr., congratulated on the Exeter S>-no(l,

49.
Kemble, anecdote of^ 182.

Ladij and the Priest, novel, so called, i49~story
of, 151.

Lancet, its denunciations of bad food, 593— with
what effect, ibid.

Lapsed, the Theological questions concerning
them, 463.

Lair, upon Public Instruction in France, in
1850, 89- opposed by many eminent Catho-
lics, 8y— sanctioned by the Pope, 90— of 1833,
concerning primary' vschools, 98- its two great
divisions, 1 11— working of its machinery, 113
— grounds of objection to it, 117.

lA^ris, Mr., concerning the Royal Supremacy,

id-

Liijht, the Fontal, from which human science
emanates, 531 — lights flowing from thence,
i hid — inferior light, ibid -exterior llpht, 532 —
int(M-ior ami superior light, ibid— mainly the
infi;rior life which is now so much diffused,
535— decay of the superior light amongst Pro-
tijxtants, 538— the light of grace and Holy
Script nres, 540.

Lit, nifiirt', bail ta><tp in, 313.

LoiiJo,tKi<rri/, foundation of, 81.

London^ evils of, 603.

Louis PhiUippe opposed to the emancipation of
religion, 94.

Lucan^ present Earl of, exterminator and op«
pressor, 79.

Luther^ waged war against autiiority Itself, 538—
taught the principle of distrust, 540— be and
his co-religionists could destroy but not build
up, 341— his rule in religion applied by others
to politics, 543.

AfaUby, Dr., his endeavours to defirand the eccle-
siastical commissioners, 486— to obtain a
larger allowance, 488— is considerably over-
paid, 491— acquiesces in an Increased charge
upon his successor, 492— has received during
fourteen years more than was dae to him»

492-
i/iory, the Holy Virgin, place assigned to her In
Scripture, 394— the only witness to the Incar-
nation, 397 — ^the instructress of St. Luke, 398
— her sole testimony against public opinion
concerning his bfarth, 400— fkitb of the apostles
in her testimony. Ibid— how much she only
can bear witness to, 402— her concealment of
the angel's visit, 403— -her visitation of St.
Elizabeth, 404— greeting she receives, 405 —
reasons for believing her to be the channel of
graces, 407— her voice the means of grace to
St. John, 409— procured the first miracle*
ibid— her position in the economy of grace,

4".
MetaphysicSt n^lected in the nineteenth centory,

536.
Milesian Family, tribes of, 59.
Milt, 606.

Millers, found honest, 607.
Miscellany, Celtic, 53.
Montaleinbertt Count de, begins his advocacy of

free education, 93.
Monteagle, Lord, his answer to Dr. Whatcly's

charge, 218— his opinion of a member of ths

government majorities, 2S5*
Moore, places Ireland as a patient under Dr.

AMiig and Dr. Tory, 254.
Morals, perverted in the present day, 536.
Morality in England, compared with that of

other countries, 139.

Neale, Garvie, rewarded for his treachery, 85.
Novels, anti -Catholic, 147, 519— historical, 149—

novel of the Lady and the Priest, 151.
Nuns, martyrdom of eleven, 180.

O'Cane, Magnus, poetical lamentation for his
death, 76.

O'ConneU, Daniel, at school, 190— anecdotes of»
191.

O'Driscolls, the, 67— thehp feuds with the city of
Waterford, 68— their revenues, 69, 70- -subse-
quent fortunes of the family, 71— extracts
from poems about them, 72.

O'Neil, King of Ulster, death of, 74.

O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone, defends himself agaiiist
Sir Henry Douckra, 82.

Ojford movement in the Church, its progress, 3.

Pacian, his controversy with the Novatlans^

469.

ralinerston. Lord, address to him by the Presby-
terians, and his answer, 257.

Pascal the younger, his work on the confession-
al, 122— extracts, 129, 130, 131— unfairness of
its quotations, 131— instances, 132— instancea
of ignorance, 136.

INDEX.

615

PattortU, Anglican Bishop's to his clergy, a—-

that of the Bishop of Exeter, 2-13.
Pedt Sir Robert, hia kindness to Wordsworth,

359.

Peter, St., choice of his boat by onr Lord, 414—
proofis of preference giren to him, 415— alone
called to walk on the water, 419.

PhilpottSt Dr., 39— his diocesan synod, 40— mis-
taken in supposing that by individual instead
of the united action of Bishops, a Church can.
prove its truth, 48 — his opinion of the Gorham
case, 14.

Pope, the, bound to act in the matter of tolera-
tion for the benefit of his subjects, 247—
cannot recognise the Church of England, 247
—kind of preaching to which he would be ex-
pend from Protestant chapels in Rome, .253.

Power from on high or from below, 544.

Printing in Ireland on its first introduction, 186.

ProtestanUt their inconalstencies concerning the
Sabbath, 426— Uieir cold perception of the
sufferings of our Lord, 434— feebleness of belief
in the divine mysteries, 436.

in Rome, how numerous, 242— con-
trasted with the number of foreigners in Lon-
don, 243— the self-deification in the Exhibit
tion, 536.

Protestantism^ what it has done for the world,
550.

powerless to educate the soul,

561— resigns the influencing of the will, 563.

Proverb, a, its definition, 588.
Prussia, its religious condition, 578.

Quarterly Review, article in it, 89.

Qu^en, the, her good use of the Exhibition, 536.

Religion, Cathcllc, opinion propounded of it by
Lord John Russell, 529— general opinion that
it tends to " confine the intellect and enslave
the soul," ibid— opinion accounted for, 530.

Revolution, Frencli, in 1848, conduct of Catho-
lics upon that occasion, 102.

R'bespierre, his death, 180.

Roche, Mr. James, 174— his education, 175— his
accurate knowledge of Latin, 176— of French
literature, 177— resides at Bordeaux, 179— his
arrest and escape at Paris, 180— return to
Ireland, 182— misfortunes, 183— his present
position, 184— his es8a}rs, ibid., 194.

Rousseau, J. J., 124— Buonaparte's opinion of
him, 186.

Rule, Catholic, tends to tacrease liberty, 543.

Saintes, town of, 175.

iSaints, rules observed in estimating their pre-

cedancy, 410.
Sabbatarian theory of Protestants, 426.
iSchool, free Catholic, opened and closed at Paris

in 1830, 93.

Normal, in Paris, 95— condition of pri-
mary schools, 98 — impulse given to religious
Rch(K)ls under the law of 1850, 116.

Schoolmasters, 102— persecuted in Ireland, 175.
See, Holy, promotes universities In Belgium and

Ireland, 575.
Seymour, Mr. Hobart, his conduct to the Jesuits,

2!2.

Shepfwrd, the Rev. Mr., his paradoxes, 438 -his
doubts, ibid— tendency of them, 439 — obliged
to reject all history in order to sustain his
anti-Roman position, 440 — his ignorance, 442.

, Rev. Mr., his blunders, 444— admits

his prepossessions, 445— admitted discoveries

against his own theory, 446— his account of

the letters of St. Cj-prian, 447, 461- of the

disputei of tlie Spanish Churcli, 449- of Gaul,

^o— cites the case of the Patriarch of Alex-
andria, 4^1— and of Pope Victor, 452— of St.
Athanasius, 454— which he treats as a forgery,
456— and is. guilty of suppression, ibid— hii»
book a mass of assumptions 459— specimens
of these, 46x«— his absurd style of criticism,
463— reasons for rejecting Padan's letters,
467— process for proving Cyprian's letters
spurious, 472— setting aside of authorities, 474.

Smners, treatment of; by Catholic confessors,
125— misrepresentations of it, 127.

Sktvay, the worst of all, left untouched by the
modems, 553.

Society, Celtic, not sufficiently encouraged by
tlie English, 53— subject of the fir^t tract in
the miscellany, 54.

Stones, engraved, collection of, by Prince Ponla-
towsky, 595, its history, 596.

Sturge. Mr. Jacob Player, his evidence concern-
ing the Bishop of Bristol and Horfield Manor,
508.

Subttcmees with which chicory is adulterated,
609.

Sumner, Dr., his early opposition to the Tracta-
rian movement, 4^hi8 ideas of a Church, 5 —
his charge, 6— self-contradiction on the sub-
ject of the Bible, as a rule of faith, 10— effects
of this charge, 11— reply to it by Dr. PhU-
potts. 12— his speech upon the consecration of
Dr. Hampden, 17— his two main grounds of
attacks upon the Oxford writers, 21— upon
the doctrine of justification, 22— opposition to
the idea of a visible Church, 24.

Sunday, in opposition to the Sabbath, 426 — pro-
per observance of it, 431— Jewish rigour de-
nounced, 431— Catholic views concerning it,
433.

Supremacy, Royal, over the Anglican Church,
35.

Sweden, what measure of toleration is used
there, 258.

Synod, Diocesan, summoned by Dr. Philpotts,
40— declare the Catholics in England to be in
schism, 43— omits to notice the great grievance
of supremacy, 45.

Testament, New, the historical, theUr book of
credibility to be tested by all human means,
394— double aspect In which they present
themselves, 395— the writer's appeal to the
usual grounds of credibility, 396— record few
events which might not have been known by
human testimony, 396— contain nothing acci-
dental or immateitu, 422.

Tlieology, moral, of the Catholic Church, distin-
guished firom her moraJ teaching, 122.

Theory on the subject of lying, charged by Pro-
testants against Catholics, 204— example
brought against themselves, 207.

Theirs, M., his conduct on the educational ques-
tion, 105, 106, 107.

, M., sees the result of modem education,

580.

Tigemadh his History of Ireland, 58, 59, ^.

Times, the, its article on tlw Italian Churcli in
London, 231— mis-statements concerning its
erection, 232.

Toleration, Religious, in England and elsewhere,
24.5_how obtained, ibid— what toleration the
Pope has met with for his claims here, 251—
how practised In Catholic countries ibid.

Truth, Theological, set aside as unattainable by
Protestants, 546.

Ulster, death of the King of, 74.

Unity, such as the world loves shown In the

616

INDEX.

Great Exhibition, 557^-snch m it does not
love in the Catholic Hierarchy, ibid.

UniceraUies endowed and founded by the Roman
PontiffH, 569 — unirersitics, English, great helps
to lYotestantisni, 585.

Univer»ity^ Irish, great necessity for, 576.

UniversUp of Napoleon, 90— profeiwors he select-
ed for it, ibid— bore fh)ni the first the stamp
of infidelity, 91— had the monopoly of state
education, ibid — opposition made by it to free
edactttion, 94— by harrassing and refusing
permission to clerical teachers, 96— sui^wrted
by the press, ibid — its interesU, how support-
ed under the new law, 112— opposition made
by it to the new scheme, 116.

Veracity, English ideas of, 141.
Victort Pope, 452.

Wai^ngton^ General, anecdote of, 181.
Winkdmann deceived by a false gem, 596.

Wordtworth^ unpopular In his own time, 314—
great discouragements, 315— f&mily consola-
tions, ibid— lines to his wife and dster, 316 —
opinion of Carlyle and Emerson, 318— faults
of his style, ibid— his opinion of Scott, 321 —
character of his genius, 322 —his choice of sul>-
Jects, 324— harsh Judgments of contempora-
ries, 327— his self-conceit, 331— his life devoid
of incidents, 333— dislike of writing, ibid —
his biography, 334--his pedestrian feats, 342
poems, 343— the Prehide, 349— the Recluse
and Excursion, 350 — traces his own character
in the Excursi«i, 325— reception of that
poem, 355— White Doe. 356— becomes indif-
fiarent to fiauie, 360— his foelings towards
Cathulicism, 361— his fiunily, 363— his death.
365.

Ximenet, Cardinal, University he fonnded, 571
—prepares the first Polyglott Bible, 574.

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